ESPN announced last month that it will air Inside the NBA surrounding marquee events within its NBA coverage, licensing the award-winning TNT Sports studio show in the first season under a new 11-year media rights contract with the National Basketball Association. A few months earlier, TNT Sports reached a long-term commitment with analyst Charles Barkley to have him exclusively contribute to the company for years to come. Barkley signed a 10-year deal with TNT Sports in 2022 and has been with the sports division for the last 25 years. While it was presumed that he would continue to take part on Inside the NBA next season, that is apparently not the case.
Barkley, while appearing on Tuesday’s edition of the Dan Patrick Show, divulged that he is listening to NBC and Amazon as the companies build out their broadcast teams ahead of obtaining NBA live game broadcast rights next season. Moreover, he wants to know everything that is on the table for him before he chooses where to sign. Barkley expressed that he loves the people at ESPN and would do the best he possibly could “if we end up there,” but ostensibly wants less ambiguity surrounding the situation.
“First of all, they haven’t even given us any type of schedule whatsoever, but I’d be doing myself a disservice not to meet with NBC, which I have, and meet with Amazon, which I have,” Barkley said, “and the No. 1 thing – and I’ve told everybody – ‘Can you all please give me a damn schedule?’ because nobody knows anything.”
Barkley emphasized that he wants to know how much he is going to be working before deciding where he will broadcast next season. Furthermore, he stated that he is not going to be contributing to coverage on ESPN, ABC and TNT at the same time. TNT Sports had divulged that it is developing an Inside Sports show for next season that will feature talent from Inside the NBA. The company also reached a five-year extension of its digital partnership with the NBA concurrent with the settlement of a lawsuit.
“If we go to ESPN, I got nothing but love and respect for those guys, but I’m not going to do ABC, ESPN and TNT,” Barkley said, “so I took my time meeting with the other two networks.”
In further discussing the situation, Barkley presented several examples of him stepping up to do extra work for TNT Sports to help the company. He revealed that there was no additional money involved in being part of college basketball coverage, and also conveyed how he started a podcast with Ernie Johnson and took part in The Match.
“I’ve never asked them for an extra dime for doing extra stuff, but we got traded to another network, [so] I want to know exactly what’s going on because, like I say, I’m not going to be doing five shows,” Barkley explained. “I’m not going to be working four days a week on any network, either NBC or Amazon. That’s not going to happen.”
Barkley mentioned that he would potentially be willing to work two days a week, but he emphasized that people would be nuts if they think he will go to three or four days. Patrick, a former SportsCenter anchor at ESPN, said that if he went to the network, he would have to participate in shows such as College GameDay, take part in a radio show and appear on First Take.
“That’s not going to happen, Dan,” Barkley said. “Listen, you have my word on that. I’m not going to be working all the time.”
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