The NBA revealed that it agreed to 11-year media rights deals with The Walt Disney Company, NBCUniversal and Amazon’s Prime Video earlier in the week. These contracts are reportedly worth a collective $77 billion, thus resulting in the ostensible end of the league’s relationship with Warner Bros. Discovery as a rightsholder. Entities owned by Warner Bros. Discovery have been broadcasting NBA games since 1984 and will have one more season to go on its current media rights deal. The company has sued the NBA for denying its attempt to match the package bestowed to Amazon, stating that the league engaged in an “unjustified rejection” of such rights. It is seeking “specific performance and declaratory and injunctive relief” in order to enforce the matching rights clause in its existing NBA media rights contract.
Charles Barkley, an analyst for TNT Sports’ award-winning studio program Inside the NBA, released a statement of his own on Friday morning expressing his disappointment with the situation. Barkley has been a member of the program since joining TNT Sports in 2000, most recently working alongside Ernie Johnson, Kenny “The Jet” Smith and Shaquille O’Neal. During the NBA Playoffs, he revealed that next season would be his last on television no matter what happens with the media rights. In an interview on the Dan Patrick Show on Friday morning, Barkley articulated his sentiments on the outcome, expressing sadness for his colleagues.
“I’m not worried about me, Shaq, Kenny and Ernie, but I’m really concerned about the people behind the scenes,” Barkley said. “What’s really awkward about it [is] we got one more year, so these guys are going to have to be like, ‘Wait a minute. I know I’m going to get fired in a year. What do I do? Do I look for other opportunities that might dry up in a year?,’ so that’s what really sucks for the people behind the scenes.”
Barkley attributes money and compensation to be the reason behind reaching this point, and he classified the fans as the people who are losing in this situation. After Patrick mentioned previous comments made by Warner Bros. Discovery chief executive officer and president David Zaslav, Barkley surmised that they did not have much to do with the rejection since the company did match. Instead, he disclosed that the league choosing to bring in another partner portrayed the deal and its terms in a different manner.
“This was a last-ditch cash grab by the NBA and the players,” Barkley said. “That’s why I think they signed an 11-year deal, so they’re like, ‘Hey, let’s get as much money as we possibly can right now. This is going to be our last bite of the apple’ because TNT, ABC/ESPN, they’re not going to pay more money going forward. That’s why I think they’re like, ‘Hey, you know what? Let’s get in bed… with the streaming because they’re going to be the only people who can afford us in 11 years.’ That’s just my honest opinion.”
Even though Barkley has had conversations with all three new rightsholders for several months, he still plans to retire after next season. Yet he expressed that it would be stupid of him not to listen to the other offers being made. Barkley is currently entering the third year of a decade-long deal worth $210 million, he divulged, and is on the precipice of a monumental decision that needs to be made regarding his contract. Either on Friday or sometime next week, Barkley expects to hear from Warner Bros. Discovery admitting that they screwed up and having to select one of two circumstances regarding his deal. This represents a provision that he pushed to include in the deal to prevent himself from being wronged in this situation.
“So they’re either going to have to guarantee the whole 10 years, $210 [million], or they’re going to have to ask me to take a pay cut, which under no circumstances am I taking a pay cut,” Barkley explained. “Zero chances of me taking a pay cut.”
If the company does not guarantee the deal, Barkley will become a free agent, an outcome that he foresees coming to fruition. He had a feeling that the company would lose the NBA several months ago and wishes that it would have announced the deal. Now that a resolution has been realized, Barkley feels a sense of relief around the company that is permitting employees to plan for the future. Although he is continuing to listen to the rightsholders in the new deal and is flattered by their interest, he does not need to make a decision for a year and is not sure if he or his colleagues, specifically citing Johnson, would leave the company.
“I don’t know if I want to go to another network,” Barkley said. “I’ll never say never, but right now my intention is to [retire] and go out with a bang.”
