Washington Commanders games won’t be broadcast on The Team 980 or any Audacy stations for the 2022 NFL season, the company said Wednesday.
Sports radio veteran and host Kevin Sheehan said there was disagreement “on the value of the broadcasts.”
A Commanders spokesperson said in a statement that multiple companies, including Audacy, submitted bids to be part of its selection process. The team concluded its broadcast agreement process last week, the spokesperson said.
“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,” the statement said. “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.”
Separately, Sheehan said that “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 station, part of Audacy and previously owned by Dan Snyder’s Red Zebra Broadcasting, says it will debut new gameday coverage.
WTOP’s Joshua Barlow contributed to this report.