Charles Barkley, the longtime studio analyst for Inside the NBA over the last 24 seasons, recently reaffirmed his long-term commitment to Warner Bros. Discovery despite the company being unable to agree to a new media rights deal with the NBA. The media conglomerate, despite its $37 million debt load and recent $9.1 million impairment charge related to its television networks unit, has filed litigation against the league for the manner in which it rejected its matching rights provision in accordance with the existing contract.
The league has until Aug. 23 to provide answering papers in this matter, for which the company is seeking preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to prohibit the NBA from awarding the broadcasting rights to any third party. If such injunctive or equitable relief is not granted or deemed insufficient, the company aims for redress in the form of monetary damages.
Barkley appeared on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz on Tuesday where he outlined his rationale for continuing his 10-year, $210 million deal with Warner Bros. Discovery. Within his discourse, he explained that he left at least $100 million on the table by deciding to stay with the company. In previous conversations, Barkley had stated that The Walt Disney Company, NBCUniversal and Amazon had reached out to him, all of whom are part of the new 11-year NBA media rights package reportedly worth a collective $77 billion. When people demonstrated incredulity and disbelief towards Barkley’s assertion, it came as a surprise to Dan Le Batard, who did not find the realization to be astonishing.
“I would think that NBC or Amazon might double his salary if they were trying to get a name like that trying to get into sports,” Le Batard said, “and I was just surprised by the sheer number of people.”
Le Batard encouraged listeners to consider the circumstances of what is occurring, starting with how Barkley recalled that the employees he has worked with for a long time divulged their hardships. From there, he decided to retire from television on NBA TV in the middle of the NBA Finals, and shortly thereafter, started hearing offers from other companies. Le Batard believes that Barkley would never have gone to ESPN, but that NBC and Amazon were ultimately fighting for the rights to have him on their networks. In the end, Barkley voiced that he wanted to remain at the network and continue supporting the employees, recently pledging $5,000 each to 50 colleagues.
“They all have a contract for another year so that they would have some security for their future and he wouldn’t have to hear more of those conversations, and so many people not only called him a bullshit lier,” Le Batard said. “They said, ‘Why didn’t you just take the $100 million and create a fund for those 200 employees so that you can pay them?,’ and I was just mystified by an act of generosity spoken by Charles Barkley, not volunteered, an answer to a question because he answers all questions, that people’s reaction, so many of them, would be, ‘He’s lying. That’s bullshit.’”
Show contributor JuJu Gotti reminded the audience that Barkley had turned down an offer from LIV Golf after reports of the entity being interested in him for several months. Shortly thereafter, Barkley and his colleagues Ernie Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny “The Jet” Smith signed contract extensions to remain with Warner Bros. Discovery. Co-host Jon “Stugotz” Weiner surmises that part of the pushback towards Barkley’s remarks could be related to individual financial shortcomings or hardships.
“I do think that media outlets would pay Charles Barkley pretty much whatever Barkley wants if he was willing to leave Turner Sports,” Weiner said. “He’s not – he’s going to stay there – but I think people just don’t want to hear that right now because they’re struggling to make ends meet. They’re struggling on a daily basis, and they don’t want to hear a guy who’s already making that much money say, ‘Hey, I turned down over $100 million, and I did it because I care about these people.’ They don’t want to hear it.”
Show contributor Jessica Smetana articulated that the internet will amplify extreme takes akin to Weiner and that users will see unfiltered replies. Throughout her life, she has observed that there is a cynical disposition towards wealthy people and their commitment to altruism and avers that it may be the way it is. Before the program moved off the topic, co-host Amin Elhassan added that if Barkley had said he took the $100 million and created a fund to pay for employees, people would question why he did not contribute more and for him to prove it.
“I think it’s probably a combination of both of those things,” Le Batard concluded.
