>> The Washington NFL franchise has announced plans to change their name. No word on what
they're going to change their name to, but this should be noted that Daniel Snyder, arguably
the most vile, worst owner in professional sports. And yes, I am including James Dolan
of my Knicks and Rangers in that category.
He was only forced to do this after his corporate sponsors stopped supporting him. Dan Snyder
didn't want to do this at all, and I have some damning quotes on that. So Washington
DC's NFL team on Monday announced it was retiring its controversial, I'll it in this context,
Redskins name and logo which have long brought charges of racism.
The team for years refused to consider changing the name, but that changed this summer after
corporate sponsors and retailers pressured team to drop a nickname that had long been
seen as a racial slur against native Americans. FedEx, which owns the naming rights to the
team's Maryland stadium had threatened to pull out of business dealings with the team
unless the name was changed.
87 investment firms and shareholders also sent letters to top executives at Nike, FedEx,
and PepsiCo urging the companies to sever ties with the organization unless it changed
its name. The 87 firms represent more than $620 billion in assets. Amazon, Walmart, Nike
and other major retailers also pulled the team's merchandise from their respective websites
in recent weeks.
Just over seven years ago, Daniel Snyder who purchased the franchise in 1999 for $800 million
following the death of previous owner, Jack Kent Cooke famously told USA today that the
name of the franchise would never change. We will never change the name of the team
he was quoted as saying in 2013.
We'll never change the name, it's that simple, never, you can use caps. Well, turns out money
talks and Dan Snyder has decided that now the money is in the direction of changing
the team name. And for me, first of all, I despise Dan Snyder, I think he's a horrible
human being.
You won't be surprised to know that he donated a million dollars to Trump's inauguration
fund and is just a general bad guy. Actually, I'll show this right now. He sued this old
woman here about ten years ago. She's 74 years old into bankruptcy and she had all of the
Washington franchise memorabilia on her couch cuz she couldn't work in the economic collapse
over a few thousands of dollars when she had season tickets.
And he refused to relent, this grandma who had been a lifelong fan, her daughter, I think
danced for the team. Just that's the kind of guy that Dan Snyder is. And now he's choosing
to change the name, because the corporate sponsors are forcing him to. And last point
before all I'll toss to you, Cenk, it epitomizes the shortsightedness of conservatives.
Because he could have made a ton more money if he got out in front of this the way Nike
gets out in front of social issues, and they have all of this brand surrounding that and
come up with this really cool new concept. But now it looks like because it is him following
the money when he could have made a really cut throat business decision and looked cool
in the eyes of young people and progressive.
>> Yeah, well, the idea of Dan Snyder looking cool and progressive.
>> I know. >> It seems fairly inconceivable, but so to
me, there's two different issues here, or two important issues. One is the money. So
Dan Snyder should of course get zero percent credit for doing the name change now.
And so, but I want to put in a little bit of nuance into that, okay? So you have to
take into account that Washington is an NFL franchise, that means they aren't going anywhere,
there's no chance of harm to their business. In fact, as Emma points out, if they'd changed
the name earlier, and when they do change the name now, they're gonna sell a whole new
set of jerseys and merchandise.
And so every once in a while you'll see the NFL teams do throwback jerseys, why? Cuz they
want to sell more throwback jerseys online. And so that's why they do it. That's why they're
nuts for not hiring Colin Kaepernick, all the teams, cuz they'd sell out of his jersey
and break every record there was.
But Dan Snyder is both obstinate and old school. No there's a good chance he liked the racist
name, and he didn't wanna let it go, and he thought it was no big deal. So what, right?
And so if you're a smaller business, like a mom and pop restaurant in a local town and
people Google your name to find you and to give you a ratings, etc.
Changing your name might be an existential question. But for an NFL team, it definitely
is not. So you don't even have that concern anywhere near a smaller business cuz you're
already giant and immovable. You're an NFL franchise. You're not going anywhere. And
so that's why it was more callous in his case.
Now, the second reason why it's more callous, is because there's absolutely no dispute over
the name. It's a slur, everybody knows it's a slur, it has no second meaning. So for example,
the UNLV mascot is the Running Rebels. Now, the Confederate soldiers were also called
rebels. But rebels has another meaning a more common meaning just means rebellion, right?
You could be Star War rebels you could be Confederate rebels you could be Running Rebels.
In the case of you and UNLV, it's a reference to apparently western settlers. Okay, so I
didn't know they were running or rebels, but apparently they are. So do I think that they
mean anything racist by it?
Absolutely not, so context matters. But there is absolutely no second meaning to the word.
And I'm gonna say it here in this context here again, Redskins, it's an obvious slur,
it's always been a slur. It's never not been a slur, it's never had a second meaning. So
it's like keeping the N word as your logo.
On that, there's just no nuance at all. There might be nuance when it comes to the Seminoles
in Florida State. In fact, they do a good job with it. There might be nuances even when
it comes to the Cleveland Indians. Their mascot is terrible, the name is an interesting debate.
But for the Washington, what possible other meaning could there be? Other than saying
something terrible about a particular group of people?
>> Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think the Chiefs is a great example of a team name that I don't
think should be changed, because it toes that line.
But they're not trying to be openly disrespectful to people and keep a slur in their name in
the way that Washington was. I mean, Snyder was was steadfast. He said I love the heritage
of this name. I love the heritage of this team. But you see some of these NFL owners,
many of them I would include put Dan Snyder in number one in terms of bad guys.
They have a pattern of doing terrible things. That's why I mentioned how he sued the grandmother
who was a lifelong fan, and how recently their left tackle Trent Williams was traded. He
forced to trade because he had a cancerous growth on his head and the team botched it
and tried to cover it up and didn't address it medically because they were penny pinching.
I mean, there's a pattern when it comes to bad guys like this. You can see it in the
way that they run their organization on a micro level. Washington has not been successful
at all during Snyder's ownership in fact, they've been international, national joke,
and just the way that he treats people.
And so I think it's just a test case of, the fish rots from the head down. And so Snyder's
a great example of that. >> Yeah, I guess last thing on this is, look,
I some folks on the left believe in things like cultural appropriation, and that does
that happen sometimes?
Of course it does, right? Sometimes is cultural appropriation misappropriated? I think it
is. And so it depends on the context and there you need to do nuance. My point is there are
those hard cases where a lot of honest Americans will disagree. This is not a hard case.
It's an open and shut case. The only meaning of the word is an obvious slur. It's insane
that they kept it this long. >> Yeah, Dan Snyder please don't sell the
team, cuz I wanna to keep playing you twice a year with the Giants. He is so bad at his
job, and it's delicious.