The White House said Saturday that naming a new Washington Commanders football stadium after President Donald Trump would be “beautiful”.
The remarks follow an ESPN report that the White House has been discussing the possibility with the owners of the NFL team.
The planned $3.7 billion stadium will be built on the site of the old RFK Stadium, which is currently being demolished.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt all said in an email to the BBC that naming it in honour of the president would be fitting.
“That would be a beautiful name, as it was President Trump who made the rebuilding of the new stadium possible,” she said.
The unnamed White House official told ESPN: “It’s what the president wants, and it will probably happen.”
Trump is expected to attend a game Sunday between the Commanders and the Detroit Lions at the Commanders’ current stadium in Landover, Maryland.
The game will honor American veterans, and Trump is expected to participate in halftime activities. He may use the opportunity to announce his wish for the new stadium to bear his name.
American football teams typically sell naming rights for their stadiums to corporate sponsors for tens of million of dollars, like the Minnesota Vikings’ US Bank Stadium or Seattle Seahawks’ Lumen Field.
But there are some football stadiums that don’t have corporate names, such the Chicago Bears’ Soldier Field and the Green Bay Packers’ Lambeau Field, named after the team’s founder and longtime coach.
The president doesn’t want to buy the stadium name, or have a corporation pay to name it after Trump, the White House source told ESPN. Instead, he wants it named in tribute to his efforts getting the stadium deal approved, sources told ESPN.
If named in his honour, the stadium would add to the list of buildings already donning Trump’s name, like his hotels, golf courses, and skyscrapers where his name often appears in prominent gold letters.
It’s also not the only way Trump is trying to leave his mark on the city of Washington, DC. He has begun demolishing the White House’s East Wing to make way for a gold-filled 90,000 sq ft (8,360 sq m) ballroom that Trump has said would fit 999 people.
The president has also proposed constructing a triumphal arch, the so-called “Arc de Trump”, on the National Mall across from the Lincoln Memorial. Lawmakers have also proposed a bill that would rename the Kennedy Center the Donald J. Trump Center for Performing Arts.
The BBC has reached out to the Washington Commanders for comment. The office of DC mayor Muriel Bowser declined to comment.
