Can Trump Pressure Commanders to Change Name? First Amendment Analysis

On July 20, President Donald Trump announced in a Truth Social post that he might block the Washington Commanders’ new stadium deal if they don’t change their “ridiculous” name back to “the original ‘Washington Redskins’” — a statement the president is “serious” about, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

The announcement has free speech aficionados joining football fans asking:

“Can the president do that?”

The president’s statement is a First Amendment fumble in several respects, but a few legal and factual grey areas complicate matters.

Here are the key First Amendment issues and questions at stake.

First Amendment principles in play

Team names = protected speech

A professional sports team choosing a name is a First Amendment-protected, expressive choice.

Business names tell the world who you are and what you stand for. The choice of a football team name implicates a range of subsequent expressive choices: from the team ethos, to its marketing choices, to its uniforms and beyond.

The First Amendment prohibits government restrictions on speech

The First Amendment limits state action, barring the government from making laws or policies that limit the freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition.

The First Amendment doesn’t apply to private actors, like professional football franchises, which can exercise their expressive rights as they see fit.

The Washington franchise, for example, changed its name and logo to Washington Football Team in 2020, and in 2022, to the current Washington Commanders moniker. The old logo and name had attracted backlash from some groups “who viewed the name and branding as both a slur and a disparaging stereotype.”

The resulting name changes were a voluntary choice made by a private entity. There was no evidence the move was the result of any direct coercion from federal, state or local governments or officials, although Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser repeatedly expressed her desire for the team to change its name in 2020, calling it “an obstacle for us locally but it’s also an obstacle for the federal government, who leases the land to us.” She had previously signed a name-change resolution to that effect in 2014 when she was a Washington council member.

President Trump’s statement, however, represents a specific threat to use the power of his office to make the team change its name again.

The First Amendment prohibits compelled speech

Government actors can’t force private actors — like professional football teams — to say something they don’t want to say.

The First Amendment bars viewpoint discrimination

When the government acts to promote or censor a particular message or viewpoint, that’s almost always a First Amendment violation.

Here, the president is clear that he doesn’t like the Commanders’ name, having called it “ridiculous.” In a separate post on his Truth Social platform, President Trump explained that he personally supports the old name and the name Indians for the Cleveland Major League Baseball team that changed its name to the Guardians in 2021.

“Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen,” the president wrote. “Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them.”

The First Amendment bars jawboning

Wielding government power to influence private business deals, often referred to as “jawboning,” violates the First Amendment. The key question when it comes to jawboning is whether — as the U.S. Supreme Court explained in two 2024 decisions — the government coerced a third party to take action that it can’t directly take itself.

The federal government cannot force the team to change the name back; it also can’t force the District of Columbia, where the land is located, to make that demand in order for the team to get a stadium.

The president can’t impose “unconstitutional conditions”

Forcing a team to change its name in exchange for a stadium deal is likely an “unconstitutional condition.”

The government can’t condition the receipt of public benefits (like approval for a stadium built on public land or using public funds) on forfeiting constitutional rights or coercing expression — although courts have allowed government decisions around public spending to burden First Amendment-protected expression if that burden is incidental.

Here, the president can’t condition the land deal on the Commanders giving up their First Amendment right to choose their own team name.

Other key First Amendment questions and considerations

Some government funding decisions may implicate speech

Government funding is an area where two well-established rights frequently collide. It’s well-established that we have a First Amendment right to be free from government-compelled speech and viewpoint discrimination. It’s equally well-established that governments can make funding decisions that sometimes implicate expression.

Courts have held that some speech-adjacent decisions — for example, selecting one art installation over another to receive public funding — constitute legitimate exercises of the government’s power of the purse. Courts draw the line where the government’s actions intentionally, rather than incidentally, burden speech.

The nature of this land makes this a somewhat unique situation

Robert F. Kennedy Stadium sits on federally owned land leased to Washington in 1958 and recently extended for 99 years by President Joe Biden. It served as the home of the team from the 1960s to the 1990s, after which the team moved to a stadium in Maryland.

The city and team have gotten close to, but not completed, a deal.

Another wrinkle is Washington, D.C.’s status as a nonstate, subject to congressional oversight. It’s Congress, not the executive branch, that has power over Washington dealings, while also giving the district itself a measure of control.

But the president has said he wants to change that. Earlier this year, he endorsed a federal government takeover of the District, telling reporters in February, “I think we should take over Washington, D.C.”

Who decides what happens to the land next?

The executive branch has broad discretion over use of federal resources, as long as the government is not intentionally targeting, promoting or censoring certain First Amendment-protected expression. This includes broad authority to choose which projects get federal support, how to allocate funding and permitting, and land-use approvals.

Here, the president will likely argue that his conditioning of federal funding or land-use approvals is simply an exercise of his presidential discretion. Whether that discretion is in or out of bounds with respect to this particular plot of federally owned land — in a district subject to congressional, rather than executive, oversight — may ultimately be the call on which everything hinges.

Alex Morey is a First Amendment specialist at Freedom Forum. She can be reached at [email protected].