Can Donald Trump really make an NFL team name its stadium after him?

Wait, Donald Trump is naming a stadium after himself?

That’s if a well-sourced report from ESPN is to be believed. The US president has apparently let it be known to the ownership group of the Washington Commanders that he wants the team’s new stadium, which is scheduled to open in 2030, to take his name. “It’s what the president wants, and it will probably happen,” a senior White House official told ESPN.

Presumably Trump, as a serial winner, has chosen the Commanders because they’re the best team in the NFL then?

Not quite. While the franchise was a dominant force in the 1980s, its last Super Bowl appearance came in the 1991 season. Although the Commanders’ fortunes were revived last season thanks to new owners and a brilliant young quarterback in Jayden Daniels, their form has slumped again this season.

So why would want Trump want to be associated with them?

Good point – what would Trump have in common with a team with a dubious history with women and minorities? Having said that, the move would give Trump two things he enjoys: power and revenge. The NFL is by far the most popular league in America, as well as the richest in the world – having his name on one of its stadiums will make sure he is even more prominent than he already is. It would also be a counterpunch against a league with which Trump has had a fractious relationship. In 1983 he bought a franchise in the rival United States Football League in an attempt to force a merger with the NFL, only to wind up sinking the younger league. In 2014, Trump was frustrated in his attempt to enter the NFL’s inner circle when his bid to buy the Buffalo Bills fell short. The clashes have continued into his presidency: during his first term, he described NFL players protesting against social injustice as “sons of bitches”. In his second term he has urged the Commanders to revert to their previous racist nickname and attacked the league’s decision to choose Trump critic Bad Bunny to play the Super Bowl’s halftime show this season.

Will he succeed?

This is a man who has already managed to summon up various Trump Towers, Trump Plaza, Trump Steaks, Trump University, Trump Shuttle, Trump Vodka, Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Mortgage and the Donald J Trump Ballroom (to name but a few). Plus, Trump has become adept at getting billionaires to do what he wants of late, while he has found himself given a warmer greeting in the sports world in his second term as president. The route to naming the stadium is a little tricky but Trump has leverage. As president, he oversees the federal agencies responsible for environmental and land-use approvals at the proposed site of the new stadium, so he could speed up, or slow down, the process if he chose to. “He has cards to play,” one source told ESPN. “He can make it very difficult to get this stadium built unless people align with him on the name.” It should also be noted, that the Commanders will not be the ones to name the stadium. The proposed site sits on National Park Service land, and the District of Columbia Council will lease the stadium to the team. Again, Trump can lean on these bodies if he so chooses. “The team doesn’t have the authority. They can’t name the stadium on their own,” a source with direct knowledge of the process told ESPN. “The city would be involved, and the Park Service would be involved.”

Are other NFL stadiums named after people?

They are, but those people tend to be dead. Two of the most famous stadiums in the NFL – Green Bay’s Lambeau Field and Chicago’s Soldier Field – are tributes to people who have passed away. In Green Bay’s case, the stadium was renamed for the team’s founder and coach Earl “Curly“ Lambeau a few months after his death, while the stadium in Chicago was a tribute to US soldiers who had died in the first world war. Washington’s former stadium was named after a politician, but its name illustrates how it differed from Trump’s proposal: the Robert F Kennedy Memorial Stadium was renamed as a tribute to the US senator who was assassinated several months beforehand. It’s also notable that Lambeau and RFK did not lobby to get their names on the stadiums.

So which stadiums are named after living world leaders?

It should be noted that Trump would – probably – be out of power by the time the new Commanders stadium opens. But you can draw your own conclusions from living leaders who have their names on stadiums. Cameroon’s authoritarian leader has the Paul Biya Omnisports Stadium, India’s authoritarian leader has the Narendra Modi Stadium, Saudi Arabia’s authoritarian de facto leader has the proposed Prince Mohammed bin Salman Stadium, while Sierra Leone’s authoritarian leader had the Siaka Stevens National Stadium while he was in power. Hong Kong also went for the Queen Elizabeth Stadium during her reign, but she was a monarch and therefore completely different from Trump.