Landover, Maryland - The Washington Football Team has finally announced its new team name and unveiled its much-anticipated new logo and uniforms.

After receiving over 40,000 fan submissions for new names, Washington franchise CEO Tanya Snyder confirmed in September that the list of possible contenders had been narrowed down to eight.

Wednesday's big reveal allowed fans to finally meet their new team: the Washington Commanders.

Led by team president Jason Wright and coach Ron Rivera, the franchise has struggled for the past two NFL seasons with not only changing its name, but abandoning its previous brand entirely.

The team was formerly known as the Washington Redskins, a name that has been criticized at various points of its 87-year run for being a racially insensitive slur for Native Americans.

"As an organization, we are excited to rally and rise together as one under our new identity while paying homage to our local roots and what it means to represent the nation's capital," team owner Dan Snyder wrote in a statement on the new name drop.

"As we kick-off our 90th season, it is important for our organization and fans to pay tribute to our past traditions, history, legacy and the greats that came before us," he added. "We continue to honor and represent the Burgundy and Gold while forging a pathway to a new era in Washington. Today may mark the first day for the Washington Commanders, but we are and always will be Washington."

While the new name may come off as generic to some, it's a welcome departure from the racial connotation of its past.

As much as the newly-dubbed Washington Commanders franchise would like the world to think its decision came from a place of self-reflection and empathy, it really isn't the case.

It's more likely that it buckled from some outside pressure.

Team officials had previously defended its reasons for keeping the offensive Redskins branding as "tradition."

"We'll never change the name," Snyder stated in an interview in 2013. "It's that simple. NEVER — you can use caps."

"As a lifelong Redskins fan, and I think that the Redskins fans understand the great tradition and what it's all about and what it means, so we feel pretty fortunate to be just working on next season," his stance continued.

It wasn't until 2020 that the franchise began to actually take concerns about its name seriously.

In response to the murder of George Floyd, protests and reforms erupted across the country. It opened up discussions about systemic racism existing in various aspects of American culture.

In the sports world, many athletes began to use their platform and influence to stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Sports fans and corporations that became empathetic to the cause demanded changes, particularly in the realm of Washington's team branding – putting even more attention and pressure onto the team to scrap its image and logo.

Fast-forward to July 2020, when 87 team investors and shareholders – collectively worth $620 billion – asked large corporate advertisers including Nike, FedEx, and Pepsi to abandon all business relations with the team unless it agreed to change its name. Shortly after, the franchise gave in, and adopted the Washington Football Team as a temporary name.

Since then, the franchise has made more of an effort to be more socially conscious, such as its move in hiring the first Latina to work a front office position with the NFL.

Whatever the team's true intentions, the new name is one that most fans are wholeheartedly embracing. The move will hopefully set a precedent for other teams and brands to follow in the Commanders' footsteps.