Washington Redskins' Next Stadium: Virginia in 'Very Serious' Talks

RESTON, VA — The ongoing tussle over where the Washington Redskins should play their home games has flared again with Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe dangling a new stadium in front of the NFL team.

Headquarters and practice fields for the Washington Redskins are in Ashburn, although team owner Dan Snyder lives in Potomac, MD. Since 1997, FedEx Field in Landover, MD, has been the team’s home stadium.

On an ESPN show Friday, McAuliffe said that most of the team’s season ticket holders live in Virginia, and the players all live in Virginia, while two-thirds of the revenue comes from Virginia fans. The state is in "serious negotiations" with the team, he said.

“I view this as a Virginia team,” he said, according to The Washington Post. “We’re in very serious negotiations, as I assume other jurisdictions are. Listen, we would love to have them.”

The lease for FedEx Field runs through 2027, but Snyder has already commissioned Danish firm Bjarke Ingels Group, which has released potential stadium designs. Washington, DC, and Maryland officials also want to explore a new stadium as a way to lure or retain the Redskins.

ESPN 980 host Chris Cooley says a new stadium location will likely be announced in November.

The interview mentioned the readily available land for stadium, and its vast parking lots, along with economic development around Tysons Corner, Reston, and near Dulles Airport with the planned Silver Line extension.

“I think those areas would be great places for a new stadium,” McAuliffe said, adding that a stadium would have to be near a Metro stop.

A design for a new stadium released this spring by Bjarke Ingels Group shows the venue surrounded by a semi-transparent skin and a moat. Architects say the stadium would hold 100,000 people, with parks and pedestrian bridges built in to cater to tailgating fans.

Year-round uses for the venue are built in, said Ingels, with people surfing on the moat in the summer, then ice-skating and playing hockey on the frozen water in the winter.

Last year, McAuliffe pitched multiple sites for a stadium along the unbuilt second leg of Metro’s Silver Line, the Washington Post reported. The first leg of the Silver Line opened last summer between Falls Church and Reston; the second leg is projected to open in 2018.

The second leg will include a stop at Dulles Airport and run west to two more stops along the Dulles Greenway.

A poll conducted by CBSDC.com in 2015 found that of the three locales where Redskin fans live - Virginia, Maryland and the District - most respondents would favor the team moving back to the District. The Redskins played at RFK Stadium from 1961 to 1996 before the move to Maryland.

A February 2015 story by ProPlayer Insiders suggested that the best Maryland site for a new Redskins stadium would be the National Harbor area in Prince George’s County. Plenty of flat land behind Oxon Hill Farm overlooks both the District and Alexandria, VA, giving Virginia fans quick access to the site.

MGM National Harbor, the $1.3 billion, 23-acre resort casino under development there, will open in the fourth quarter of 2016.

Forbes magazine said this spring that the Redskins are the third-most valuable team in the league, worth $2.85 billion, thanks to a wealthy and passionate fan base, NFL TV deals and a $205 million stadium naming rights agreement with FedEx.