Changing "Redskins" wouldn't cost anything

How Much Would It Cost Dan Snyder To Rebrand The Redskins?

By Travis Waldron In the case of mascots that utilize Native American imagery, though, reshaping the brand identity may actually be good for business, according to research from sports marketing experts at Emory University. Emory’s Mike Lewis and Manish Tripathi studied the economics of college teams that dropped Native American imagery—either team names or actual mascots—and found that the negative effects are muted, limited to only a one- or two-year time frame. After that, the costs subside—and may even turn into benefits:In terms of financial impact, the model results suggest that school’s experience a very short (1 or 2 years) negative impact and then quickly recover. The results also suggest that in the long-term the shift away from a Native American mascot yields positive financial returns. As a follow up, we used the brand equity measures created here as a dependent variable and regressed this value against the previously defined variables related to the school’s use of a Native American mascot. In this analysis we found NO significant effects. The key implication is that switching away from a Native American mascot has no long-term negative effect on brand equity.Comment:  For more on the Washington Redskins, see AP Poll on Redskins Is Flawed and Snyder: We'll Never Change "Redskins."