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FedEx Field Upcoming Event Dates & Tickets
About this Venue
FedExField (originally Jack Kent Cooke Stadium) or Redskins Stadium[citation needed] is a football stadium located in an unincorporated area near the Capital Beltway (I-495) in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, near the site of the old Capital Centre (later called USAir Arena in 1993 and US Airways Arena in 1996). FedExField is the home of the Washington Redskins football team. From 2004 until 2010, it had the largest stadium capacity in the NFL, at over 91,000. Currently, the capacity is around 74,000.
History
FedExField was built as a replacement for the Redskins' prior venue, Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington, D.C. In 1994 Jack Kent Cooke sought to build a new stadium on the grounds adjacent to Laurel Park Racecourse along Whiskey Bottom and Brock Bridge roads. Lack of parking facilities and support prompted a second site selection.
The stadium opened in 1997 as Jack Kent Cooke Stadium, in honor of the recently deceased owner of the team, and the stadium site was known as Raljon. The name "Raljon" is a portmanteau of Jack Kent Cooke's sons' first names – "Ralph" and "John". Notably, Cooke was even able to register Raljon with the United States Postal Service as a legal alternate address for the 20785 zip code of Landover, Maryland, in which the stadium is located, and went to some lengths to require media to use Raljon in datelines from the stadium. This ended when Daniel Snyder bought the Redskins from the Cooke estate, and the Redskins now give the stadium's address as Landover.
