A 60-second commercial that aims to force the National Football League to change the Washington Redskins' name will air at the half of Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday.

The Washington Post reported that the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, a California-based tribe, made a "significant investment" to buy ad time for the 60-second anti-Redskins commercial, which will reportedly run in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Washington.

The tribe did not reveal how much they spent for buying an ad slot, but according to Adweek, a 30-second slot cost around $460,000 in last year's NBA Finals.

"It's just a time to get people thinking about putting an end to outward hatred and using sports as a tool to focus on racism," Chairman Marshall McKay said.

The 60-second ad, which is a shorter version of a video released before this year's Super Bowl, starts with a montage of names Native Americans are usually called like "proud", "forgotten", "resilient", "son", and "spiritualist".

At the tail end of the video, the narrator said, "Native Americans call themselves many things. The one thing they don't," before flashing a Redskins helmet.

The National Congress of American Indians, the producer of the original two-minute ad, along with the Oneida Indian Nation, praised the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation for their significant effort to send a strong message to American viewers that they strongly oppose the use of racial slurs.

"We applaud the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation for having the vision and commitment to ensure that the American public receives the message loud and clear that Native Americans strongly oppose the use of this disparaging slur," the NCAI and the Oneida Indian Nation said in a joint statement. "By airing this ad during the NBA Championships, this message for change will be brought into the living rooms of millions of American all across the country."

Last month, 50 Democratic senators asked the NFL to force the Redskins to change their team's name, but the league remained firm on their stance that the name "Redskins" is not a racial slur.

Team owner Daniel Snyder also insisted that the name was not intended to be used a disparaging slur, reiterating that the club is not planning to change the name anytime soon.

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