UPDATE: The Washington Redskins have since issued a statement on the Washington Redhawks name change rumors.
Statement from the Washington #Redskins pic.twitter.com/u3DQJFiFXi
— Washington Redskins (@Redskins) December 13, 2017
If you’re on the internet, there are some elaborate images and websites going around that appear to indicate the Washington Redhawks will be replacing the Washington Redskins’ controversial nickname. Well, not so fast, my friends.
As it turns out, a bunch of pranksters created the hoax which features mirror websites of the Washington Post, ESPN, Bleacher Report and others.
But when you take a closer look at the links like this one and this one, you see that they are not the appropriate URLs for the major news media outlets. Instead, they have been altered to dupe the entire internet. And they’re pretty convincing.
Check it out:
There's an elaborate hoax going around about the Washington Redskins changing their name to the Redhawks. Someone made fake WaPo, ESPN, SI and Bleacher Report pages for it (the urls are all wrong) pic.twitter.com/KoadRYdwjX
— Eric Morrow (@morroweric) December 13, 2017
However, anyone who has been following the controversy regarding the NFL team’s name, owner Daniel Synder has previously said he will never change the name in order to honor the franchise’s tradition. But hey, at least the little prank looks good.
“We’ll never change the name,” Snyder told USA Today in May 2013. “It’s that simple. NEVER — you can use caps.”
If you want to learn more about the “name change,” head on over to WashingtonRedhawks.com.
They really went all in.
Well done, hoaxers, whoever and wherever you may be.
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