Charles Barkley painted an ugly picture Thursday as the future of TNT’s “Inside the NBA” grows bleaker with NBC reportedly closing in on a new rights deal with the league.
During an appearance on “The Dan Patrick Show,” the NBA great, 61, lamented how the network’s higher-ups “screwed this up” as the deal – should it materialize — would mean next season of “Inside the NBA” would be the last for Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, Ernie Johnson and Kenny Smith.
“Morale sucks. Plain and simple. I just feel so bad for the people I work with, Dan. These people have families, and I just really feel bad for them right now. You know, these people I work with, they screwed this thing up clearly, and we don’t have zero idea of what’s going to happen,” Barkley said.
“I don’t feel good, I’m not going to lie, especially when it came out yesterday and said we bought college football. I was like, well damn, they could have used that money to buy the NBA [rights],” continued Barkley, referencing TNT Sport’s new five-year contract with ESPN for College Football Playoff rights.
When Patrick suggested the “Inside the NBA” crew produce the show and then sell it to a network, Barkley said he’s spoken to them about signing with his production company, Fine Line Productions.
The Sports Business Journal recently reported that Johnson will remain with Turner regardless of the rights developments.
“Like I said, we’re just sitting back, waiting on these people to figure out what they’re going to do,” Barkley said of the current state of affairs.
“My two favorite wines are Inglenook and Opus, and these clowns I work for they turned us into Ripple and Boone’s Farm and Thunderbird. Like, we got the best studio show, and it’s so funny, we just won the [Sports Emmy for] best studio show, but these fools turned us from Inglenook and Opus into damn Boone’s Farm and Ripple. It’s crazy.”
Barkley’s comments come one day after Sports Business Journal reported that the NBA is “formalizing contracts” with Amazon, Disney (home to ESPN) and NBC for gaming rights.
The proposed “B” package NBC is closing in on “is believed to be worth between $2.5 and $2.6 billion annually,” according to SBJ, and is the one TNT currently has.
Once the NBC contract is complete, the NBA will present the deal to Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns TNT, to see if it’s “able to match it in ‘total value,'” per the report.
Legal action could be taken “over the definition of a match,” with SBJ noting “the league will contend a match is not dollar-for-dollar and that, specifically, a match would need to include the same ad revenue, broadcast windows, etc.”
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav “believed he would only have to pay between $1.8 and $2.1 billion to retain the ‘B’ package” for the network, which landed NBA rights a decade ago for $1.2 billion, and “refused to double” their offer to $2.4 billion,” sources told SBJ.
Barkley also suggested NBA Commissioner Adam Silver likely wasn’t thrilled by Zaslav’s past comments that Warner Bros. doesn’t “have to have the NBA.”
“He don’t need it, but the rest of the people, me Kenny, Shaq, Ernie and the people who work there, we need it, so, it just sucks right now,” Barkley said.
Barkley has been part of “Inside the NBA” since 2000.
