The saga of Charles Barkley took a new turn on Tuesday as the longtime NBA analyst has committed long term to TNT Sports, which will soon be losing the NBA.
TNT Sports announced Tuesday that Barkley will continue to contribute “exclusively” to the company “for many years to come,” a move that would seem to rule out any possibility of his leaving for another network once the new NBA media rights deals begin next year. TNT Sports, which has aired NBA games for 40 years, was left out of the new NBA deal and has since sued the NBA for denying its attempt to match newcomer Amazon’s bid for the rights.
As it is highly unlikely that TNT will end up carrying NBA games after this season, Barkley’s move would seem to rule out his continuing as a voice on NBA games. At the same time, it is still unclear how a potential settlement between TNT and the NBA might shake out, with at least some speculation that TNT could wind up producing Amazon’s NBA coverage.
In the event that Barkley is no longer covering the NBA, TNT Sports does have additional programming to which he could contribute — primarily the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, which he has worked for 13 years. TNT will also begin carrying additional college basketball coverage starting next year, though it is hard to imagine Barkley at halftime of regular season Big East games. He also serves as an analyst on the TNT golf series “The Match.”
It would seem less likely that Barkley would contribute to non-basketball programming such as the NHL or NASCAR, though given Barkley’s wide appeal that cannot be entirely ruled out.
According to Joe Flint of The Wall Street Journal, TNT is weighing whether to transform “Inside the NBA” into a general sports program, which would allow Barkley to opine the company’s non-NBA properties. Barkley, it should be noted, headlined a show on TNT with a similar concept in the 2002-03 season. The show — titled “Listen Up!” — featured Barkley discussing issues both in and outside of sports alongside host Ernie Johnson, airing weekly prior to TNT’s NBA games.
In the announcement, Barkley said he is looking forward to working with TNT “on the shows we currently have and new ones we develop together in the future” and credited the company’s leadership for “fighting hard” and being “aggressive in adding new properties.”
The wording of the announcement was perhaps purposely vague. Barkley is still in the early stages of a 10-year contract he signed with TNT in 2022 and he has said repeatedly that he never had any intention in playing out all the remaining years of his deal. He also maintained that his contract has an out that would allow him to leave in the event TNT lost the NBA, and has made no secret of his potential flirtations with other networks.
To suggest that Barkley has provided mixed signals in this process would be an understatement. He said on-air following an NBA Finals game in June that he would retire from broadcasting following the coming NBA season — though he has backtracked on retirement talk on numerous occasions.
