Going deep on the Washington Football Team’s new name
Just days away from the unveiling of a new name for the Washington Football Team, and speculation is rampant. Fox 5’s David Kaplan spoke to a domain name broker who pointed out the url Commanders.com.
WASHINGTON – Just days away from the unveiling of a new name for the Washington Football Team, speculation is rampant.
The team has done a social media campaign showing current players and WFT legends reacting to the new team name, but its official release hasn’t happened.
That hasn’t stopped some internet sleuths from thinking they’ve figured it out.
A Twitter user named @LarryLegendBTW appears to have noticed the website Commanders.com was recently listed on a site called Mark Monitor.
While Fox 5 has not confirmed the new name of the Washington Football Team, we did speak with Dave Evanson, who is a broker for Sedo.com.
Evanson’s site helps facilitate the sale of domain names. He says he brokered the sale of Commanders.com this past summer for $20,000.
Evanson couldn’t divulge who the buyer or seller was but indicated the viewable movements of Commanders.com, especially its listing on Mark Monitor, is notable.
“It looks like as of today or yesterday, it transferred to MarkMonitor.com. Mark Monitor typically holds domain names that are by large corporations. So it fits, strategically, thematically, that it would go to Mark Monitor,” Evanson assumed.
SUBSCRIBE TO FOX 5 DC ON YOUTUBE
Shawn DuBravac, a technology expert, says the publicly available data suggests to him that whoever owns Commanders.com is about to do something with it, and it’s logical to think it could be the new name for Washington’s NFL team.
“The fact that Mark Monitor has large corporate clients, it’s most likely a large organization that’s using this. It isn’t somebody who’s just speculating in the name, but likely a corporation that plans to use it. It also happens that Mark Monitor has a deep relationship with the NFL and many of the teams,” DuBravac said.
Washington Football Team to announce new name next month
The Washington Football Team will reveal its new name next month, team officials said Tuesday. FOX 5’s Katie Barlow has the latest.
Sporting News reports all but six NFL teams have their websites listed on Mark Monitor. Fox 5 also found a 2013 presentation given by Mark Monitor to NFL teams touting their security and anti-counterfeiting capabilities.
DuBravac also notes there’s been some movement with RedHogs.com, which data shows was recently listed on GoDaddy.com.
The listing on Mark Monitor implies more permanency than GoDaddy, DuBravac said.
“There’s two reasons you acquire a name. One is you acquire it for pure speculation, and you hold onto it. And two is you acquire it because you want to use it. And typically when you acquire it, and you want to use it, you’re going to move it to where you’re going to deploy it,” DuBravac said.
The WFT officially retired the ‘Redskins’ name and logo in 2020. Fans will find out the team’s new name on Wednesday, Feb. 2.
