John Skipper has a very high opinion of Charles Barkley. He joined Dan Patrick on Thursday to talk about Tom Brady’s new deal with FOX. The Meadowlark Media boss made it clear that he thought Barkley was in rarified air amongst his broadcasting colleagues.
“I think there are only three or four people in the history of broadcasting that you can genuinely say people tune in to see them. The late, great John Madden, who just recently passed, was one of those guys. Barkley is the guy right now in all of sports that you can say people will tune in to see him.”
Dan Patrick asked Skipper if that meant ESPN ever tried to sign Barkley while Skipper was in charge.
“There’s almost nobody who’s really, really good that we didn’t try to get,” Skipper said adding that the problem was that ESPN asks its employees to work too much.
He said this same problem came up when he talked to Shaquille O’Neal about coming to Bristol. Skipper pitched Shaq on being the star of ESPN’s NBA coverage instead of “playing second fiddle to Barkley on TNT.”
Skipper says Shaq told him that he had already talked to Charles Barkley, who had said that at TNT there were no rehearsals, no First Take appearances and no SportsCenter hits. The Inside the NBA crew gets to just show up and talk basketball. That was all Shaq was looking for.
John Skipper acknowledged that the workload can be a disadvantage for ESPN in those situations. ESPN has a lot of programming to fill though and the model they use has worked for them. It wasn’t for Shaquillel O’Neal or Charles Barkley, and Skipper says that is okay. TNT created a show that stands out above other studio shows because it plays to its cast’s strengths.
“It’s because they look like they’re having fun,” Skipper said, explaining why Inside the NBA is his favorite sports studio show. “They know what they’re talking about. They’re willing to be provocative, they’re willing to mash it up, and it’s great.”
