Washington Commanders games will no longer be broadcast on The Team 980 or any Audacy stations beginning with the 2022 season, Kevin Sheehan announced Wednesday on The Team 980. The Sports Junkies reacted to the news over on 106.7 The Fan shortly after it broke.
"It doesn't change our show one bit or another," said Junkies host John-Paul Flaim on 106.7 The Fan. "Like, we've done our show with the rights and without the rights."
"I don't think we got any benefit from it," Eric Bickel added.
"Look, if the team does really well and then starts making the right moves, we'll praise them — we'll be the first to praise them," said John 'Cakes' Auville. "If they continue to flail and be mediocre to bad, we're gonna spotlight that too. That's just what we do. We've been doing that for 25-plus years and this news doesn't affect us."
"No, it doesn't affect us at all," said Bickel. "It should affect us. Like, we should have in the past... we should have probably gotten some better treatment. It actually didn't really help us."
The Commanders organization and Audacy disagreed on the value of the broadcasts, Sheehan noted, adding that it's "important for us to continue to be able to provide honest, objective information and analysis about the team."
As such, The Team 980 will debut new Washington football gameday coverage this fall, including at least four hours of pregame, a new in-game talk show focusing on analysis, fan reaction and in-game betting angles, followed by complete postgame coverage.
106.7 The Fan will continue its own objective coverage of the team, including pregame and postgame coverage this fall featuring analysis and insights from respected team reporters.
The Commanders have recently lost a string of important sponsors, including their beer partner Anheuser-Busch (Budweiser, Bud Light), Medliminal and Inova, one of the major health care providers in Northern Virginia which cut its 10-year partnership with the team short five years early.
