On Wednesday morning, Audacy announced that it would no longer be the broadcast home of the Washington Commanders. Kevin Sheehan made the announcement on The Team 980.
Sheehan said that the two sides “disagreed on the value of the broadcasts [and] it is also very important for us as a sports talk station, even as a long-time flagship station for the team, it was important for us to continue to be able to provide honest, objective information and analysis about the [Commanders] on our talk shows.”
The two Audacy stations in Washington, DC will not ignore the Commanders. The Team 980 and 106.7 The Fan will continue to provide pregame and postgame shows as well as cover the team every day on each station’s regular programming.
“It was important for us to be able to continue to provide what we provide on our talk shows which is honest, objective analysis about the team,” Sheehan said on air.
Objectivity is a keyword here. Daniel Snyder has been under congressional investigation in the past for allegedly allowing a culture of rampant sexual harassment to fester within the organization. Negative headlines have been hard to avoid for the Commanders orgainization. Ignoring those issues would potentially compromise the credibility of both The Fan and The Team with their audience.
The Commanders are also heard on Cumulus’s ESPN 630 The Sports Capital. That station has not said anything about its relationship with the team changing.
On Wednesday night, a spokesperson for the Washington Commanders reached out to Barrett Sports Media offering a different perspective. The team provided the following statement:
“We initiated a formal RFP process last fall for the Washington Commanders Radio Broadcast Agreement, which concluded last week. Multiple companies submitted bids as part of this process, including Audacy who was an active and aggressive participant and submitted multiple partnership proposals for the next three years of increased value over our previous deal. Based on the evaluation process, we selected a new partner who will bring a significantly larger deal, as well as new creativity and broader reach and scale, to programming. We shared with Audacy last week that we would not be moving forward as partners. We’re very excited about our new radio broadcast partner, who we will be announcing soon, and anticipate this being the largest radio deal in the team’s history.”
