For many Washington Commanders fans, Sunday’s 20-16 victory over the Arizona Cardinals was the true beginning of a new era.

It marked the team’s first regular season game under new ownership, a group that consists of several very well-off locals and an NBA Hall of Famer.

The game was sold out for the first time in years. Several notable local celebrities were among those who took in the experience, like Alexander Ovechkin, Kevin Durant, and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. Many former Washington players were in attendance too, including a few, like Robert Griffin III, for the first time since they retired. Fans were treated to at least some of the $40 million in upgrades to FedEx Field that ownership promised earlier this summer.

Even the traffic situation around the stadium seemed at least somewhat improved from last year.

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And a win on the field certainly didn’t hurt, though it’s hard to know how much stock to put in a victory over Arizona, which could well be the worst team in the league.

A vibe shift at FedEx Field

By nearly all accounts, the first game was a huge success and the vibe inside of FedEx Field was joyous, celebratory, and hopeful.

“You’re seeing people hugging in the stands,” Fox broadcaster Adam Amin told the Washington Post. “When was the last time you saw anything like that in the last decade here in Washington?”

D.C. native Glen McClure went to yesterday’s game with his brother. He’s been a fan for over four decades, remembering the glory years of RFK Stadium and the three Super Bowl victories.

He’s also a former season ticket holder. This was the first time he had been back to FedEx Field in six or seven years, having kept away in part because of the team’s widely-criticized former owner Dan Snyder, who sold the team earlier this year.

“I did not want to spend the time and money going to the stadium for a long time. It was not a good experience,” he tells DCist/WAMU. “And Snyder was bad. He was bad for the organization. Bad for the community. And, on top of that, they just kept losing.”

Yesterday, though, made him reconsider that stance. While he said the parking situation was still less than ideal, the energy and fan enthusiasm made up for it.

“I saw very few fans [supporting] the other team, which we are not used to here in D.C.,” McClure says.

He was not the only one who noticed that.

Washington football legend Joe Theismann was also at the game yesterday and tells DCist/WAMU it was unlike anything he had since in awhile.

“If you look around that stadium yesterday, it was all Washington Commander fans. I mean, wall-to-wall fans,” Theismann says. “And they started screaming early, long, and loud and it was like something I hadn’t seen in a long, long time.”

Will the Commanders shine last?

Sam Fortier has covered Washington’s NFL franchise for the Washington Post since 2020. He says the atmosphere at yesterday’s game was a “stark, stark change” from previous years, so much so that several players remarked to him how different it was. In fact, even the concession stands looked better.

“The vibes were just so good that I think that you could have looked at the same hamburger stand you looked at last year and just felt better about it because Dan Snyder didn’t own the team anymore,” Fortier says.

But he cautions that the fans and the team’s new owners are in a “honeymoon phase.” If the same pattern of losing that became commonplace during the Snyder era continues, it won’t matter who the owners are. In fact, despite the win, Fortier said he heard some booing directed toward the team when things weren’t going so well.

“Professional sports is all about winning. Like, you can have a great culture and you can be great in the community, but if you don’t win, no one cares,” he says.

Jamual Forrest agrees. He’s a writer and podcaster for SB Nation’s Hogs Haven, a Washington Commanders-focused blog. Most importantly, he’s a fan and was watching the game from his couch in Prince George’s County.

He said there were plenty of times he would watch the team over the last several seasons and think it was all “a waste of time.” They weren’t winning, the team didn’t care about the fans, and the owner was being accused of awful behavior. Yesterday, even watching it on television, was the first time in a long time, it all was fun.

“I didn’t have to actually go to the game yesterday to feel the energy,” Forrest says. “The fandom is returning.”

But he also knows that Sunday’s excitement may not last if the team does not emerge victorious more often.

“Let’s say October, or November, rolls around and this is a three [wins] and seven [losses] football team…what will that stadium look like?,” Forrest asks rhetorically.

For McClure, though, yesterday’s win in the first regular game season under new Commanders ownership was the extra point after a much-celebrated touchdown.

Just having new owners is enough, he says. For this year, at least.

“They could go 0 and 17 this year,” McClure says. “And it still seems like things are looking up.”