Will political headwinds blow Commanders from RFK?

Political winds may be shifting the Washington Commanders’ proposed stadium from the favored RFK site to remaining in Landover, Md.

The ever-changing competition between Maryland and Washington, D.C. sites once more favors remaining near the Commanders' current home of Northwest Stadium. Heavy federal government layoffs are now contributing to an expected $1 billion deficit over three years for the city while talk of no tailgating at the team’s 1961-1996 home sparked fan outrage.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser told a public forum of several hundred residents on March 1 that she intends to continue talks with the Commanders. Bowser believes a sports venue would elevate the surrounding neighborhood, much like Nationals Park and Capital One Arena, which greatly improved the Navy Yard and Penn Quarter, respectively.

But, coming tax-revenue shortfalls caused by recent federal layoffs, decreasing tourism tax revenues that still haven’t matched pre-pandemic 2019 levels, uncertain federal support for the city and increasing demand for housing on the 177-acre site threaten to crater the Commanders project.

D.C.'s chief financial officer Glen Lee told reporters during a news conference on March 3 that he expects a “mild recession” in Washington where one in five federal jobs may be eliminated during the ongoing agency cutbacks.

Still, Bowser has spent the last week promoting a sports complex while preparing her 2026 city budget proposal in April. Bowser delivered a $515 million infusion into Capital One Arena last year to keep the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals from moving to Virginia.

“The way out of [the financial downturn] is to have plans for four years and invest in them so that you have an income driver,” Bowser told the Washington Informer. “The big thing that we have to be strategic about is investing in things that are catalytic, that create additional dollars, not take additional dollars, and sometimes that’s a hard concept for everybody to embrace.”

Also hard to embrace at RFK would be lack of space for tailgaters. One proposal includes parking garages, which late Washington owner Jack Kent Cooke rejected as “motorcar madhouses” when leaving the Washington site in 1997.

However, the Commanders own more than 200 acres in Landover, which would keep ample tailgating, while the new stadium would be relocated to a southern site closer to Metro.

Commanders majority owner Josh Harris hopes to open a new stadium in 2030. That means a deal would likely be needed this year.