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Looking back at the first attempt to bring a pro sports team to Alexandria
Things might've felt a little familiar when the deal to move the Caps and Wizards to Alexandria fell through. That's because the region has seen a very similar situation before. FOX 5's Josh Rosenthal spoke with former Virginia Governor Doug Wilder about the news.
"It’s a great day, and I’m really relieved," Capitals and Wizards owner Ted Leonsis said at a Wednesday evening press conference, flanked by District Mayor Muriel Bowser and Council Chairman Phil Mendelson.
And with that, time ran out on a plan to move Leonsis’ teams, the Wizards and the Capitals, out of D.C.
"I was not surprised," former Virginia Governor L. Douglas Wilder said Friday.
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After all, Wilder played a big part in a similar situation once before.
Back in 1992, the region also watched a splashy press conference, followed by some ensuing protests, after Wilder and Jack Kent Cooke announced a plan to move Washington’s football team to the same spot, Potomac Yard.
"We will have that stadium ready for the 1994 season, and nothing is going to stop us," Cooke told reporters way back when.
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Although, all these years later, Wilder said the two deals had some major differences, too.
"Bringing the Washington football team to the Potomac Yard site was going to be done at the owner’s expense," he told FOX 5. "Jack Kent Cooke was furnishing all of the money."
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Stadium canceled: Remembering the Redskins Potomac Yard plans
Nearly 30 years ago, Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke threatened to move the franchise out of Washington, D.C. to Alexandria's Potomac Yard neighborhood. Jack Kent Cooke Stadium at Potomac Yard, however, never materialized, and three months after the big announcement, Cooke told fans that the Redskins would be staying in D.C. Here's how it all unfolded back in 1992.
A Democrat who opposed this most recent plan, Wilder added that Virginia would be just fine without the Wiz and the Caps.
"The people were kept in the dark far too long and yet the people finally won," he said.
When asked whether a professional team would ever come to Alexandria, Wilder replied, "I don’t know about Potomac Yard. It could very easily be a professional team comes to Virginia. How it does and when it does, I don’t know."