Don Van Natta Jr.
Don Van Natta Jr.
ESPN Senior Writer
- Host and co-executive producer of the new ESPN series, "Backstory"
- Member of three Pulitzer Prize-winning teams for national, explanatory and public service journalism
- Author of three books, including New York Times best-selling "First Off the Tee: Presidential Hackers, Duffers, and Cheaters from Taft to Bush"
- 24-year newspaper career at The New York Times and Miami Herald
Nov 8, 2025, 10:00 AM ET
President Donald Trump wants the Washington Commanders to name their planned $3.7 billion stadium after him, multiple sources with knowledge of the situation told ESPN.
A senior White House source said there have been backchannel communications with a member of the Commanders ownership group, led by Josh Harris, to express Trump's desire to have the domed stadium in the nation's capital bear his name. The new stadium is being built on the old RFK Stadium site that served as the team's home from 1961 to 1996.
"That would be a beautiful name, as it was President Trump who made the rebuilding of the new stadium possible," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told ESPN on Friday night via email.
Leavitt declined to answer additional questions, but the senior White House source told ESPN: "It's what the president wants, and it will probably happen."
A Commanders spokesperson declined comment Saturday. However, a team source said the organization has spent days preparing for Trump's attendance at the Commanders' home game against the Detroit Lions on Sunday afternoon. Trump will attend the game as Harris' guest and is expected to participate in halftime activities honoring the military.
The team source said that while the Commanders anticipate possible conversations with Trump about the new stadium during the game, there have been no formal conversations to date.
The Commanders own the new stadium's naming rights, presumably to be sold to a corporate sponsor. But a source with firsthand knowledge of the process said that would be a separate decision from also commemorating an individual in the stadium name.
That decision would likely rest with the District of Columbia Council, which will lease the stadium to the Commanders, and the National Park Service, which manages the federal government land on the old RFK Stadium site where the new stadium will be built in time for its scheduled opening in 2030.
"The team doesn't have the authority. They can't name the stadium ... on their own," the source said. "The city would be involved in that decision, and the Park Service would be involved."
In April, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Harris announced that the Commanders' new stadium would be built in Washington.
In July, Trump said he would block the construction of the stadium if Harris did not change the team name from Commanders to its old name the Redskins, which is considered offensive to some Native American groups. Former owner Dan Snyder had stripped the name from the team in 2020, and for two years it was called the Washington Football Team before Snyder dubbed the team the Commanders. Some fans have called repeatedly for the new ownership group to restore its original nickname.
On Sept. 17, the D.C. Council voted 11-2 to approve the RFK Stadium Project. The Commanders will invest $2.7 billion -- and pay for all cost overruns -- to build the 65,000-seat stadium that sits on a 174-acre parcel two miles from the U.S. Capitol. The district, which will chip in $1 billion, will lease the stadium to the team. The Commanders stadium project will include housing developments, a sports complex and retail shops -- "the largest economic development project in D.C. history," Bowser called it.
The Commanders currently play at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland, a venue nine miles from the RFK site that was the team's home for three Super Bowl wins. The RFK Stadium site is a deeply sentimental one for Washington fans and members of the current Commanders ownership group.
Nearly all NFL teams have sold lucrative stadium naming rights to corporate sponsors for hundreds of millions of dollars, as the Harris ownership group presumably intended to do. A handful have nicknames and sponsors, such as Empower Field at Mile High in Denver and GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. A couple fields, Green Bay's Lambeau Field and Chicago's Soldier Field, bear no sponsor names.
Trump's golf courses and hotels have long carried his name, and during his second term, the president and his supporters have pushed to name other structures for him. This summer, lawmakers introduced a bill to rename the Kennedy Center as the Donald J. Trump Center for Performing Arts.
The source with knowledge of the stadium deal said that if Trump insists on the stadium bearing his name, "he has plenty of leverage" to make it happen, no matter which government body will ultimately decide.
"He has cards to play. He can make it very difficult, through government environmental approvals and other things, to make sure everyone who wants this stadium to be built will join to put his name on it," the source said. "Trump has plenty of cards to play to get his way."
The source with knowledge of Trump's wishes said the president doesn't want to buy the name or have a deep-pocketed corporate sponsor buy the name for him. He wants the Commanders stadium to be named after him, similar to Lambeau Field, as a tribute or thank you for his work to get it approved, sources said.
