Washington’s New CFO: New Stadium Impact?

ASHBURN, Va. - Another big step toward completing the overhaul for the Washington Football Team front office under the watch of President Jason Wright was completed Tuesday.

Wright and the organization has hired an accomplished new CFO, Greg Resh, a move first reported by Ben Fischer of SportsBusinessDaily.com.

Resh has held that title with Telemundo and ROC NATION previously.

The move has absolutely zero impact on the daily football operations, so move that aside.

It does have a significant impact on the business operations and the hunt for a new stadium.

"I’m so excited to add Greg’s deep experience, creative business mind, and athlete-like work ethic to our team," Wright said via twitter (@WhoisJWright). "He’s the ideal thought partner for me as we expand the business- a new identity/name, a new home, new business ventures. He’ll lead us into an exciting new phase."

The part of the quote that spoke to me was the new home component. As in a new stadium.

While every other NFC East has built a new stadium within the last dozen years or so, Washington has been operating in the 'concrete jungle' of FedExField since the late 90's.

Fans hate the stadium, the location, the parking, the concessions and the non-friendly nature of the structure.

No matter how much money Dan Snyder has spent on video boards and party decks, while also removing thousands of seats, nobody is ever going to like FedExField. Period.

Part of the reason Bruce Allen was fired was because for at least six years (minimum), the organization was quietly working on finding a new location for their forever home to try and match AT&T Stadium or even Lincoln Financial Field and MetLife Stadium.

For those six years (at least), Allen whiffed time and time again because nobody trusted him and many of his so-called political connections went away.

Along with the controversial former name and never-ending dysfunction, nobody wanted to help Dan Snyder and somehow they managed to make a three geographical area, high-leverage opportunity into a carton of spoiled milk.

Resh will have to deal immediately with the rebranding (they should keep Washington Football Team) but his No. 1 job at this point has to be helping to find a location and then securing the land and financing structure for construction to begin and be completed.

That project is not a one-month odyssey. It's probably at least a year from now, if not more to get everything done and approved.

The effort has to be accelerated because while the WFT are contractually locked into FedExField through 2027 and could play there longer, a new stadium project could take 8-10 years from a true beginning to a true end.

Washington is running out of time, as crazy as that sounds, and in COVID-19 world where crowds of 70,000 + are not a guarantee to come back, Wright and Resh need to find a way to make the new digs intimate, charming, yet big enough to host a Super Bowl potentially and in a good geographical location that everyone doesn't loathe.

Good luck.