The 2024-25 season will mark a historic end to the 35-year relationship between the NBA and TNT. As the NBA strikes a new deal for their television rights, TNT’s beloved Inside the NBA show featuring Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny Smith, and Ernie Johnson will soon come to an end as well. Though fans will get to rejoice the crew for one final season, Barkley predicts that TNT will end up paying a fortune, just to keep the band together.
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The Philadelphia 76ers legend was a guest speaker on The Mike Missanelli Show, where he discussed the NBA’s new broadcasting rights situation.
Now that the NBA has signed a deal with Disney, Amazon, and ESPN, the chances of TNT retaining their rights look slim. While talking to the host, Sir Charles mentioned speaking to two executives at TNT about the show’s future. And he was appalled at the fact that they wanted to keep the group together but without the basketball segment.
“They’re like, ‘We wanna keep doing the show.’ I say, ‘What do you mean keep doing the show? We don’t have basketball…What’re we gonna talk about? What’re we gonna do?’ They’re like, ‘Well, we haven’t figured that out yet. We got a year to figure it out.’”
Barkley was perplexed at the idea of the show being hosted by three Hall of Famers and a veteran NBA analyst, where they can’t be even discuss the plays made during the game. Moreover, he went on to reveal what he thinks TNT’s path for the future is going to be.
“We can’t even show highlights. We probably gotta pay for highlights. And I know some people in sports, for a two-minute golf thing, you have to pay like, $300,000. Can you imagine? The NBA really hated us…They don’t wanna be with how much they charge us for highlights.”
The player-turned-analyst believes that TNT’s plan going forward will be to take that route. But since the NBA and the network aren’t on the best of terms, Barkley predicts that Turner will be paying somewhat near that amount; probably more.
According to the 11x All-Star, one good thing that came out of this whole ordeal is the fact that about 200 people still get to keep their jobs, albeit for just another year.
