Wendy the Water Drop, left, appears in a Twitter video suggesting Washington’s football team might go better if they move to D.C.

DC Water / Twitter

Usually, DC Water brings out its well-accessorized blue mascot, Wendy, to inform residents about scheduled maintenance or to encourage folks to ditch bottled water, often with the help of 1990s pop songs. But this week, Wendy waded into a more controversial topic: whether the Washington football team should return to the District.

Wendy’s latest video parodies a Saturday Night Live sketch, in which she advises the team’s leadership that in order to (finally) be successful, they need to move to the District. The caption places the sketch in context of the Washington Nationals’ current, first-ever World Series run.. “Somewhere on the outskirts of town, they’re asking: 3 successful sports teams… all play in DC… what’s the winning formula? and let’s bring it home @Nationals!!!! #itsthewater.”

The video is the latest in a series of goofy promotions Wendy has done about the Nats: On Thursday she appeared at the Metro station adjacent to Nationals Park for meet-and-greets, where she called herself “the Nationals’ good luck charm.”

During the playoffs she begged for a ticket to the last game. “Let the First Lady of Water in and she will guarantee victory!” the caption of her video read.

According to John Lisle, DC Water’s vice president of marketing and communications, the team wanted this latest video to focus on the idea that the recent success of the Nationals, Washington Capitals, and Washington Mystics is because there must be something in the water. “We’re trying to take credit for that,” he says.

According to Lisle, the video about the football team was a group effort, but the details come courtesy of Dennis Samson, media specialist for the company. Samson must love NBC’s long-running variety sketch show: The video begins with one of the “bumper photos” that appear before and after sketches, and with audio of that weird laugh that always plays before the cold open.

The video informs us we’re at the Washington football stadium in Landover, Md., at what appears to be a team meeting. An interim coach (identified by a marked piece of painter’s tape on his ball cap) asks his staff why, compared to D.C.’s other recent playoff–reaching teams, the football team is just so bad. “What kind of message does that send?”

That’s true in real life: With a 1-7 tally this season, the Washington football team is in last place in the NFC East division. Owner Daniel Snyder fired five-year coach Jay Gruden earlier this month, in an expected—but still plenty dramatic—move. And for the record, DC Water staffer Daniel Lamm, who plays the interim coach here, didn’t base his performance on real-life interim coach Bill Callahan: “It was more that he just sounded like a football coach,” Lisle tells DCist.

Wendy shows up about a third of the way in, to riotous applause from the unseen audience, and the coach explains that she is “the new consultant management has decided to bring in.” Notes one of the seated staffers, “It’s worse than swinging gate,” referring to a famously disastrous play the team used a decade ago.

“We’ve seen the success you’ve had with other D.C. teams: What’s your secret?” the coach asks.

Because Wendy does not speak, as DC Water digital communications manager Franchesca Thompson previously told DCist, Wendy sedately scrawls on the dry erase board behind them, “DC Water.” The men are astounded. “Get Dan on the phone!” the coach growls. Over a freeze frame and more laughter, scrolling text reads: “The Washington football team moved back to the District in 2028.” (The team’s lease at FedEx Field expires in 2027.)

Lawmakers have long argued whether the football team should move to a D.C. stadium—specifically the RFK campus, where the team once played (as did the city’s soccer and baseball teams). Mayor Muriel Bowser and D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton have both sought to give the District more control of the campus, which is currently owned by the National Park Service and leased to Events DC, the city’s sports and convention authority. The city’s agreement with NPS stipulates that the campus be used for a stadium or for “recreational facilities, open spaces, or public outdoor recreation opportunities,” and the like.

But while there’s widespread agreement among local officials that the city should have more control over RFK, whether a football stadium should go there is more controversial. Bowser said in 2018 that she wants to see an NFL stadium at the site, even working with Republicans on Capitol Hill to try to get it done via a federal spending bill (it didn’t work). But as of fall 2018, nearly a third of the D.C. Council was against to bring the NFL to D.C. Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who represents the area around RFK, created a petition to oppose building “a new stadium for billionaire NFL owner Dan Snyder.” Ten months after it launched, the petition has more than 4,000 signatures.

Allen is one of the officials who wants to see affordable housing, parks, and retail space on the site. “We can’t afford the luxury of carrying a billionaire’s water to build a new stadium for a NFL team that will only play eight games a year and leave us with acres of empty parking lots the remaining 357 days,” he told DCist last fall. He’s also among the councilmembers who oppose the team’s name, which is a dictionary-defined slur.

DC Water’s video also doesn’t use the team’s name throughout, a creative decision Lisle attributes to copyright concerns. “We have to be careful about whose logo we use, just for rights reasons. … And I know some people locally don’t use the name, so maybe that’s a factor as well.” (Meanwhile the Saturday Night Live logo appears at the beginning of the clip. “That’s a good point,” Lisle admits. “We took liberties with that.”)

According to Lisle, this video, in which the company’s official mascot tells the Washington football team’s owners that they’ll start winning games if they move to D.C., is not an endorsement of the team moving back to the city. “It’s all intended to be in good fun,” says Lisle, who calls himself a longtime fan of the football team. “What we’re trying to highlight is obviously how well the Nationals are doing, how well D.C. sports teams are doing.” And that those teams might have District water to thank. “That’s what we’re hinting at, that ‘Hey, maybe if you move back, you might have the success of the other teams.'”

DC Water, an independent utility company, is not controlled by Bowser or the city, though Department of Energy and the Environment Director Tommy Wells does serve as board chairman. Lisle considers the organization “apolitical” when it comes to the football team’s plans. “The official position is we don’t have an official position on that,” he says. “There’s no reason why we would have a position on something like that.”

But Lisle says the idea that Wendy is the key to the Nationals’ recent string of wins isn’t too far-fetched. The smiling mascot appeared at Nationals Park on September 23, during the game against the Phillies, “and they won their last eight regular season games starting with that one,” Lisle says. The team has gone 17-2 since then.

So will Wendy be at this weekend’s World Series games? “She doesn’t have any plans to go to a game,” Lisle says. “I’m sure she’s checking StubHub and SeatGeek and all that.”

Filed Under: dc water, RFK Stadium, washington football team, wendy the waterdrop,