Cody Decker insists ‘sports radio is not dying’

In recent years, many around the sports media realm have spoken about the narrative that radio as a whole is a dying industry. But in the eyes of Cody Decker, this may not be the case just yet for sports radio specifically.

Decker, who is quickly approaching his one-year anniversary as a co-host of Beadle & Decker alongside Michelle Beadle on Mad Dog Sports Radio, recently appeared on the Short and to the Point podcast. During his appearance, he shared his opinion that while traditional radio has its issues, sports radio has a number of factors that differentiate it enough to engage listeners.

“When people say sports radio is dying, I vehemently disagree because it’s not,” said Decker. I do think radio is going through an issue. But I don’t think sports radio is in that scenario.”

When asked why he believes sports radio is not dying in his eyes compared to traditional radio, Decker argued that sports radio has much less competition.

“I don’t think sports radio has the competition that actual radio does. When you are talking about top 100 radio, you have competition of the internet. You have competition of Apple Music, Spotify. You have competition of SiriusXM, you have competition of Apple iCloud and what you can even do in just that. YouTube is a competitor. You do have those competitors in sports radio. But at the end of the day, local markets still matter in sports radio.

“If you are in New York City, WFAN is still a very important thing. In Chicago, The Score 670 is a very important thing. The Bay Area up there in San Francisco, the same thing. Local media matters. And I think that national media matters as well. I’m on Mad Dog Sports Radio, we’re a national channel. We get a lot of listeners. ESPN, they have their national media coverage. I think it’s not neccessarily dying.”

Decker did admit that there are significant challenges with sports radio in today’s day and age where everyone is in search of short, consumable content, a change that he blamed the popular content platform TikTok for. But he seemingly embraces these challenged on a day-to-day basis.

“I do think it’s evolving as far as the internet age continues to grow,” Decker added. “As our attention spans continue to deplete because of the TikTok world so everything is being done in small bites. But those small bites allow you to get to know somebody. At least a little bit to tune into said radio station. Radio is long-form, TV is short-form, internet is shortest-form.

“You can’t hide on the radio. You have to be able to hold a person’s attention for three-plus hours. And I love that because I love the sound of my own voice. And I love talking. And I love the fact that I get to talk to one of my best friends in Michelle Beadle on a daily basis.”

Short and to the Point is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you get our podcasts.