The status of Washington’s fanbase, and how I really feel

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March 29, 2022

by Steve Thomas

I recently invaded The Hog Sty’s Twitter feed – something I’ve mostly stayed away from for at least a year now other than to advertise our content, except for the occasion incendiary post every once in a while – to run a poll.  I was curious about the level of current dedication to the Washington Redskins Washington Commanders Washington team amongst the fanbase.  There are a couple of obvious limitations to a poll like this: first, Twitter isn’t a reflection of reality.  It’s an echo chamber of mostly awful thoughts and is the opposite of reality.  Second, the vast majority of our Twitter followers are obviously big fans of the team, so the people who participated in the poll have a more of a natural bias towards supporting the team than would an unbiased sample of respondents.  However,  Twitter was the only realistic way to reach people with a poll like this, so this is what I’m stuck with.  Here’s the poll and the results:

The first thing to notice (credit for having this thought first goes to my It’s Just Business partner Chris Larry) is that nearly 53% of the voters in the poll at a minimum have reservations about the team.  It’s pretty telling that more than half of the people who are fanatical enough to be in “Redskins Twitter” and are willing to vote in our little poll aren’t totally sold on their fanhood.  Then, almost 14% of this same group of people have disclaimed their fanhood entirely.  Considering the audience, that’s a big number.

I think it’s safe to say that these numbers would look worse for the team had this been a scientifically valid poll conducted on an unbiased sample.  That doesn’t bode well for the team.

Washington had the second lowest home attendance in the entire NFL during the 2021.[i]  They had a total of 422,009 home fans, as compared to 412,177 for the Detroit Lions.  There’s no specific data regarding the number of visiting fans in attendance, but we all know what the crowd looked like at Fed Ex Field last year.  For context, in 2012, which was Robert Griffin III’s rookie year, Washington was third in the NFL.  Here’s a chart showing Washington’s home attendance for every year of Fed Ex Field’s existence (stats courtesy of Pro Football Reference):

Notice that attendance was pretty solid until 2017, understanding that the total capacity of Fed Ex Field has gone up and down at various times.  It had an initial capacity of 80,116 in 1997.  It was increased to 85,407 in 2000.  The high water mark was 2009 – 10, when capacity was 91,704.  Since those two years, total capacity was decreased to 83,000 in 2011, to 79,000 between 2012 and 2015, and to 67,717 from 2015 to the present.  The truth of the matter is that attendance has been trending down since 2008, but it wasn’t until after 2017 that attendance started falling off a cliff, with the low point being this past season.  The 2020 season was an anomaly due to the Coronavirus attendance restrictions, but it’s safe to assume that attendance would’ve been terrible that year as well had fans been allowed to attend in mass.  Next, here’s a chart showing Washington home attendance rankings as compared to the rest of the NFL for the existence of Fed Ex Field (stats courtesy of Pro Football Reference):

Year Home attendance ranking   Year Home attendance ranking
1997 2 2010 2
1998 9 2011 4
1999 3 2012 3
2000 1 2013 4
2001 3 2014 5
2002 1 2015 6
2003 1 2016 4
2004 1 2017 6
2005 1 2018 27
2006 1 2019 20
2007 1 2020 18
2008 1 2021 31
2009 2

In general terms, Washington was at or near the top of the NFL in attendance through about 2010, when the rankings decreased slightly; however, disaster struck in 2018.  Some of the variation in the rankings beginning in 2009 is due to the openings of some new stadiums around the league, such as AT&T Stadium in Dallas and Met Life Stadium in New York. What you should get out of this table is that the rankings fall starting in 2018 syncs up with the decrease in the total attendance numbers in 2018.

Also, as noted above, Washington’s home attendance numbers have been very greatly inflated by the presence of visiting fans – longtime beat writer and Hog Sty friend Rick Snider estimates Washington’s average home crowd at about 20,000 or less.  Discount those visiting fans, and attendance would look much worse for years prior to 2018.  It’s basically been 5 years of disaster, but the disaster was mitigated somewhat by visiting fans.  Finally, these Pro Football Reference stats are likely based on the teams’ reports of tickets sold, not actual people in seats on gamedays. The “butts in seats” count would look worse for Washington.

The team appeared, at least, to have had a moderate amount of success recently with a “pick your seat” event for prospective season ticket holders, at least based on social media posts; however, never forget that Twitter isn’t real.  The truth is that we don’t know how many tickets packages the team sold this year as compared to last year.  Remember: Twitter isn’t an accurate representation of the truth.

All of this negativity in the fanbase is due to a combination of mediocre to terrible performance on the field, the unnecessary loss of the venerable “Redskins” nickname, and a series of horrible front office moves and scandals.  The latter has culminated, of course, in the current and ongoing sexual harassment scandal involving the multiple senior staffers, including the owner.  The team has cynically used the recent change to the new permanent “Commanders” nickname as an attempt to distract the public – most importantly, the local fans – from the scandal.  It seems clear that team leadership hopes that the fans will be so excited about a new name, new logo, and “new direction” that everybody will just forget about the fact that the team is embroiled in a scandal that mostly remains unresolved.  Look over here at the new shiny toy, kids!!! Ignore the sludge coming out of the walls.

Forgive me, but I’m not buying it.  If I had voted in the poll (I can’t because I don’t have a personal Twitter account), I’d have put myself in the “Screw ‘em.  I’m done” category.  For me, no matter if it’s the Redskins, Commanders, or Washington Football Team, I can’t in good conscience support an organization that mistreats and takes advantage of women in the manner that it did.  Then, to top it all off, no real punishment is imposed on the guy most responsible – the same guy who ruined one of the NFL’s elite, oldest franchises?  I couldn’t sign on to that even if the name hadn’t changed.  With the name change, they can count me out.

I don’t know what this means for me and my role with The Hog Sty.  This franchise is as far away from what I remember as the glory years as a kid in the 1980s as it could possibly be.  This is basically now an expansion team, but one with problems.  I’m not going anywhere, but I’ve contemplated some possible changes to what I do for the site during the regular season.  I don’t have any answers right now.  We’ll see.  I still love talking football, watching film, arguing about draft picks, and everything that goes with that.  It’s just that I’m no longer a person who’s rooting for this team to win, and that’s been the case for the past couple of seasons.  Frankly, I think the organization deserves every bad thing that can be heaped upon it and isn’t entitled to either fan support or winning on the field.

How do you feel about the team now as compared to a few years ago?  Let me know in the comment section.

 

[i] https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2021/attendance.htm