The Washington Commanders are working on building two stadiums, but one doesn’t exist yet.
That’s the message from team owner Josh Harris, who recently provided an update on the team’s current and future venue goals.
“While we look for a new home, we intend to improve the existing stadium as much as possible,” Harris said at the Sports Business Journal’s Dealmakers Conference in Washington, D.C.
Since purchasing the Commanders for an NFL-record $6.05 billion this summer, Harris and his ownership group have already committed $40 million to immediate upgrades to FedEx Field, and the team has faced much criticism. They will continue to spend money to make stadiums better places to watch games. NFL game.
“We did as much as we could in six weeks,” Harris said, referring to the short period between the team’s acquisition in July and the start of this season. “But there’s a lot to do in the offseason.”
But Harris knows the long-term answer isn’t FedEx Field. He said: “Eventually we will look at how to move to a new stadium.”
Options for building new stadiums in Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland remain on the table, but Harris did not provide a new timeline. In September, he told Front Office Sports that there is a lot of work on the horizon. “We’re in the very early, very early stages,” Harris said at the time. “We’re starting to build a real estate organization and we’re just starting to look into that.”
Through five home games this season, the Coaches are 4-8 and rank 27th out of 32 teams in average home attendance, drawing just over 64,000 fans per game, which is the highest capacity at FedEx Field. This corresponds to approximately 94% of the total.