Gov. Wes Moore: Maryland made ‘good faith’ offer to keep Commanders in Landover

Hours after the Washington Commanders announced they’d reached an agreement with D.C. on a plan to relocate the team to the old RFK Stadium site, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said the state made a “good faith, very strong” offer to keep the team at Northwest Stadium in Landover.

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In order to view the video you must disable your ad blocker. Md. Gov. Wes Moore on Commanders moving to DC

Hours after the Washington Commanders announced they’d reached an agreement with D.C. on a plan to relocate the team to the old RFK Stadium site, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said the state made a “good faith” and “very strong” offer to keep the team at Northwest Stadium in Landover.

Speaking at an unrelated event in Riverdale on Monday afternoon, Moore said that during negotiations, he was “very clear” he felt Maryland was the best place for them to play.

The Commanders have a lease at Northwest Stadium through 2027 and team owner Josh Harris has said he wants a new facility to be ready by 2030.

During a news conference, Harris and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser unveiled plans for a nearly $4 billion deal to build a new stadium and entertainment district. When the Commanders’ new ownership group, led by Harris, purchased the team from former owner Dan Snyder, it expressed a desire to have the team eventually return to D.C.

“We made what I think is not just a good faith, but a very strong offer for them,” Moore said. “But they were just very clear that they wanted the Washington Commanders in Washington, D.C. And I get it. You had an ownership group that paid a lot of money for that team, and I understand that.”

From the beginning, Moore said the franchise made it known that they, “wanted to return the team to its spiritual home of Washington, D.C.”

In December, Moore and Harris signed a memorandum of understanding, which said the Commanders would be responsible for tearing down Northwest Stadium and redeveloping the area if the team opted to relocate.

Moore said he has “very real confidence that they are going to hold to their word and they’re going to do what they promised to the people of the state of Maryland.”

During talks with the new ownership group, Moore said he expressed his desire that the owners “were not just going to leave Maryland with an RFK Stadium, with an empty stadium that people are just looking around saying, ‘Who’s going to pay for it?’”

The team’s decision to relocate is the second seemingly-major economic blow to Maryland in the last few months.

The General Services Administration selected Greenbelt as the location for the next FBI headquarters in 2023. But last month, President Donald Trump said he would halt those plans, because he wants to keep the agency in D.C.

When asked specifically about the possible consequences of those two things, Moore said most Marylanders aren’t thinking about the team’s return to Washington. Instead, he said, they’re focusing on what can be done to make the Landover neighborhood where Northwest Stadium sits better.

“The commitment that I have is what we are seeing now, what we’re going to see in the future, it will be better,” Moore said. “That’s a commitment that we’re making to the people of Prince George’s County. They can be actually very optimistic about what the future of the land is going to look like.”

Prince George’s Co. residents react to the DC deal The Washington Commanders have called Prince George’s County, and Landover specifically, home for nearly 30 years since the team moved out of D.C.’s RFK Stadium. Many county residents say they understand the team’s desire to move back to Washington, D.C. where the team had its greatest success winning three Super Bowls; but some of their hope is conditional on the notion that the redevelopment of the current Landover stadium site will be thoughtful, complete and relatively fast. Musician Frank Marshall and his friend Saint John live near the Northwest Stadium. Both are long-term fans and say they’re pleased the Commanders want to move back into the city. They said they understand the ownership group, led by Josh Harris, have a desire to be more closely identified with the city they’re named after. “Even though I moved to Maryland, the nostalgia for it being at RFK, reminds me of when me and my dad went to games as a kid,” he said. Marshall is a longtime ticket holder and he’s been going to hundreds of games at both stadiums. John is also a longtime fan, but said the Commanders have never been able to recreate the stadium-shaking days at RFK Stadium. “I just think D.C. has the ‘it factor,’” John said. “It always had that ‘it factor’ when it came to sports teams. Maryland, it didn’t click well.” Now, the question many county residents are asking is: What comes next at Northwest Stadium, if the D.C. Council approves the new stadium proposal and the Commanders move back into the city sometime after 2030? They’ve seen what happened at RFK Stadium — as the former home of the Washington Senators, later the Nationals and DC United, along with the football team — which has been unused and in a state of disrepair for several years, before it was finally announced that the demolition process is underway. John and Marshall said Prince George’s County has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to significantly improve Landover. “I would like to see it be a major investment for the community. But this right here was not it,” John said, referring to Northwest Stadium. “It wasn’t right for the community.” Marshall, known professionally as Frank “Scooby” Sirius with the renowned Chuck Brown Band, lives about a mile from the stadium and has performed at Northwest Stadium. He sees better days ahead. “Hopefully, they’ll turn it into an events space/living space/retail,” he said. About a mile away from the stadium, longtime Prince George’s County resident Joy Brown knows what she doesn’t want at the site if it’s redeveloped. “A lot of shopping centers do not survive when they build them here. So, no, I do not want to see that,” Brown said, indicating she’d prefer a mix of more affordable and high-end housing Resident Nick Rodriguez said whatever happens with the team, he doesn’t want his neighborhood to be home to an empty stadium falling into disrepair. “I hope it doesn’t become like what happened at RFK, when it’s just a shell. That wouldn’t be nice for the neighborhood,” he said. Gov. Moore, county officials and the Commanders, who own the Northwest Stadium property, insist that it will not happen.

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