The TNT-produced “Inside the NBA” would have a far different look if it continues past this season, but that would reportedly be fine by ESPN.
ESPN is “committed” to licensing the TNT-produced NBA studio shows “NBA Tip-Off” and “Inside the NBA” beyond this season, even if Charles Barkley joins Ernie Johnson in leaving the show, according to Eli Kronenberg and Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports. Johnson announced earlier this week that he will leave the TNT studio show at the end of the current season, a move that Barkley had publicly foreshadowed for weeks as part of his own invocations of retirement.
Specifically, Barkley has said that he remained with “Inside” the past two years at Johnson’s request, committing to the show for only as long as Johnson intended to remain as host. Barkley told Bill Simmons last month that he and Johnson are “a package deal” and that this coming season would be his last on TV “unless Ernie changes his mind.” Barkley, then: “[I]f Ernie retires after next year, I’m done.”
Unlike Johnson, Barkley has publicly floated retirement throughout his playing and broadcasting careers, following through only after a major injury cut short his farewell 1999-2000 NBA season. It remains to be seen if this time will be different.
ESPN is in the second of a reported five-year deal to license the TNT-produced NBA studio shows. When that deal was reached in November 2024, Alex Sherman of CNBC reported that ESPN has “protections” allowing it to exit the arrangement “if key hosts depart.”
Save for the addition of Shaquille O’Neal in 2011, the “Inside the NBA” cast of Johnson, Barkley and Kenny Smith has been unchanged since the 2000-01 season, one of the longest uninterrupted runs of host and analysts in the history of sports television — spanning four different mergers and ultimately outlasting the actual TNT NBA rights package.
When Barkley first started regularly appearing on TNT (and TBS) as a guest analyst during the 1999-2000 season, the networks were still at least nominally run by Ted Turner. Now, following the merger of TNT Sports parent company Warner Bros. Discovery with Paramount, TNT Sports is under the purview of CBS Sports president David Berson.
Little has been said about whether the change in ownership will in any way impact the production of the NBA studio shows, which still operate out of the Turner Broadcasting studios in Atlanta — or any of the stopgap deals TNT Sports made during the David Zaslav era to compensate for its loss of NBA rights.
TNT produced many other NBA studio shows beyond “Inside the NBA” during its run with the league, including its Tuesday night “B” team of Adam Lefkoe, Candace Parker, Vince Carter and O’Neal, and the various daily studio shows it produced while operating NBA TV. The distinctive style that has marked its studio productions figures to remain in place despite the Skydance merger, as TNT Sports veteran Craig Barry has been granted oversight of all studio production in the newly combined sports division.
