Deadspin has been tracking the closed captioning mentions of “Redskins” during the 2014 season, and now that the season is over for Washington, the final totals for the year are in. During the 2014 season, game broadcasters said “Redskins” 472 fewer times than during the 2013, a drop of 27%. Without making any bold proclamations about the name, it’s clear that some broadcasters didn’t seem comfortable using it this year.
Mentions of the team name were up from 2013 during just four weeks of the 2014 season – Weeks 6, 13, 14, and 15. Two of the games were called by the duo of Kenny Albert and Daryl Johnston, who called just one Redskins game in 2013 and said their name 166 times, the second-highest total in Deadspin’s sample. The other two games were called by the pairings of Dick Stockton/Brady Quinn and Sam Rosen/Kirk Morrison. Stockton called two Redskins games with Ronde Barber in 2013 and put together the first and third largest samples in the series, and Rosen’s one game in 2013 ranked only behind Stockton’s two 2013 games and Albert/Johnston’s three games. Barber was paired with Chris Myers for one game in 2014, and the mentions dropped to 81.
The data is interesting, because you can see definite changes between broadcast teams from 2013 to 2014. Mike Tirico and Jon Gruden totaled 166 mentions during two 2013 games, and just 99 during two 2014 games. Joe Buck and Troy Aikman called one game in each year, and their mentions jumped from 88 to 98. Thom Brennaman and Aikman said the name 125 times in their one game in 2013, but Brennaman and David Diehl said it only 42 times during their sole 2014 game. Kevin Harlan was largely unchanged between the years, going from 85 in one game in 2013 to a high of 88 (and average of 78) in three 2014 games. However, his partner changed between the seasons – 2013 partner Solomon Wilcots mentioned the name only 25 times with Spero Dedes in 2014.
However, the biggest change for the year belongs to Kevin Burkhardt and John Lynch. The duo called three Redskins games in 2013, and averaged 115 mentions per game. In 2014, they only called the team’s Week 17 finale with the Cowboys, and mentioned the team’s name just 13 times, the lowest amount in the sample. That’s a staggering drop.
Broadcasters saying Redskins less won’t force Dan Snyder to change the name. Nevertheless, there was a concentrated effort by some broadcasters and outlets to use the name less this year. What that tells me is that the name debate is becoming less of a niche issue and more of a mainstream one. When a broadcasting team says your team’s name 13 times during a three hour game, you can’t keep burying your head in the sand and pretending the protest isn’t all that significant.
[Deadspin]
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