The Washington Commanders are coming home. The team on Monday announced a return to Washington D.C. and the RFK campus it called home from 1961 to 1966 before moving to Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Commanders owner Josh Harris held a press conference to mark the occasion. Harris said the team is investing $2.7 billion, and, “Now, we want to bring the Commanders home, with a new RFK, that our fans will love, and our opponents will fear.”
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“We are thrilled to welcome the Commanders back home to the Sports Capital,” Mayor Bowser said in a statement. “We said that we could do it all – Commanders, housing, park space, recreation, retail, entertainment and more – and, together, that’s what we are delivering. When we got control of 180 acres of land on the banks of the Anacostia, we knew right away that partnering with the Commanders would be the fastest and surest route to bringing the RFK campus to life. As we focus on the growth of our economy, we’re not only bringing our team home, but we’re also bringing new jobs and new revenue to our city and to Ward 7.”
The roofed stadium, which will hold approximately 65,000 people, is expected to open in 2030. When Goodell was asked about D.C.’s chances of getting a Super Bowl, he said the new stadium improves those chances “dramatically.”
The Commanders have eyed a return to the RFK site for some time. The stadium has not been in use since 2017. In December, D.C. gained greater control of the land, and that led to increased negotiations with the Commanders about a return.
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The Commanders’ return to D.C. still needs to be approved by the D.C. City Council.
With RFK Stadium out of use the past few years, it’s become a derelict site.
The Commanders experienced their greatest period of success at RFK Stadium. The team won three Super Bowl titles between 1982 and 1991. Just a few years later, then-owner Jack Kent Cooke moved the team to Landover, Md.
Daniel Snyder obtained ownership of the Commanders in 1999, and started talking to Washington, D.C. about bringing the team back. Negotiations went back and forth for years, but nothing materialized. Snyder sold the Commanders to a group led by Josh Harris in 2023.
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Harris — who grew up a Commanders fan — continued to push for a new stadium, and the team remained hopeful it would be at the RFK site.
The team scored a major win in that pursuit in Dec. 2024, when Congress transferred ownership of the RFK Stadium land from the federal government to Washington, D.C. That paved the way for Monday’s expected announcement.
