Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images.
It’s been a big week for the Washington football team and the escalating pressure to get them to change their discriminatory name. In a landmark case on Wednesday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office decided to cancel the team’s trademark registration, meaning that the team’s name and logo is no longer protected as a registered trademark. The Board made that decision on the finding that the team’s name is “disparaging to Native Americans.”
Since then, many eyes have turned to one of the team’s major sponsors, who has, until now, remained silent on the escalating controversy. FedEx, whose president, Fred Smith, is a member of the team’s ownership group, and has their name on the team’s stadium, spoke out today about the issue, saying that they’ll remain neutral on it, AP reports. “It’s not our place to have a position on the name,” Patrick Fitzgerald, FedEx’s senior vice president for marketing, said during an interview with CNBC earlier today.
Though AP says Fitzgerald didn’t always refer to the team’s name during an interview, instead referring to them simply “the Washington NFL team,” he said that that doesn’t reflect the company’s views. “We have a longstanding relationship with Washington Football Inc. (the [Washington football team’s] parent company). The [Washington football team] play at FedEx Field,” Smith said. “But there are many, many other events there: the Rolling Stones, Notre Dame, and Army and Navy football, Kenny Chesney. That’s our sponsorship—and we really don’t have any dog in this issue from the standpoint of FedEx.”
Still, there are a few FedEx shareholders who aren’t happy with FedEx’s neutral standpoint. Yesterday, five FedEx investors, led by The Oneida Trust of the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin, filed a shareholder proposal asking them to “respond to reputational damage from its association with the Washington D.C. NFL franchise team.”
Following FedEx’s statements today, Jonas Kron, Senior Vice President and Director of Shareholder Advocacy at Trillium Asset Management, which helps to manage The Oneida Trust’s assets, said that the neutral stance “creates a real reputational risk for FedEx.”
For now, the team’s trademark registration is still in effect while the team appeals the Patent Office’s decision. Though, given what happened in previous similar cases, it could be a while before another decision is reached.
