History Shows Leagues Should Worry About Losing Studio Hits Like ‘Inside the NBA’

On Monday, Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT Sports exercised its right to contractually “match” a third-party NBA rights bid from Amazon Prime Video, potentially setting up a legal battle between the company and league.

My reaction? Good for WBD. Because without it, TNT’s Inside the NBA would likely be finished as a TV show. That’s right, the greatest studio show in sports TV history would be kaput after the NBA 2024–25 season—collateral damage from TNT losing NBA media rights after 40 years.

I understand leagues need to seek the most lucrative media deals. Media rights are their most precious asset. They’re the lifeblood of players and franchises. The NBA is poised to pocket $76 billion across 11 years from incumbent Disney’s ABC/ESPN and third-party bidders Amazon Prime Video and NBC. That would roughly triple the overall payout from its current nine-year, $24 billion deals with TNT and ESPN. Applause for the NBA.

But maybe leagues should also stop and think about their loyal TV viewers when they change media partners. Especially if it means losing great shows like Inside. 

Sure, you could argue Inside the NBA is just a pregame/postgame studio show; it’s the live games that count the most. But the Atlanta-based program with Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny Smith, and Ernie Johnson is not just any studio show. It’s the gold standard for TV sports: a wildly entertaining, hilarious Emmy machine widely admired by competitors like Stephen A. Smith of ESPN’s rival NBA Countdown. 

Every pro league would kill to have a show with Inside the NBA’s popularity and pop culture buzz. It’s been copied many times—but never replicated. Even this year, with morale in the toilet due to the show’s uncertain future, it won three Sports Emmys, including Studio Show – Limited Run, Studio Analyst for Barkley, and Studio Host for Johnson.

Could the popular show survive if Prime or NBC succeed in taking TNT’s rights? Maybe. Dan Patrick and Paul Pabst of The Dan Patrick Show smartly suggested licensing the show in toto to those companies. Barkley himself has suggested hiring his colleagues for his own production company, then selling it to another media entity. But it probably wouldn’t be the same.

Barkley recently warned that he’ll retire from TV after 25 years. Many people, including me, think the Chuckster was speaking more from the heart than the head. After all, Barkley would be the richest and most sought-after free agent in sports TV history. But until that happens, we’ll have to take him at his word. If Barkley’s gone, there is no Inside the NBA, period.

If the show leaves TNT, it could also lose Johnson, who’s a TNT lifer; O’Neal, who doesn’t need TV with all his endorsements; and Smith, who’s openly talked about becoming an NBA general manager. Not to mention many of the behind-the-scenes staffers who’ve helped make the show a runaway success. 

Another point to consider: History indicates that once a top-rated sports show like Inside the NBA goes off the air for a few seasons, then comes back, it never regains its old mojo. We’ve seen this play out before. 

Take CBS Sports’ The NFL Today. After the pioneering studio show premiered in 1975 with Brent Musburger, Irv Cross, and Phyllis George, it became a national sensation, utterly dominating its time slot. But when a piratical Rupert Murdoch of Fox Sports swooped in to seize CBS’s NFC media rights in ’93, The NFL Today ended its original run in ’94. When CBS regained AFC media rights in ’98, The NFL Today returned to the airwaves. But it had lost its TV leadership perch to Murdoch’s Fox NFL Sunday. The NFL Today has been second to Fox NFL Sunday ever since. 

Then there was ESPN’s original NFL Primetime with Chris Berman and Tom Jackson. A generation of NFL families grew up watching their humorous regaling of game highlights on Sunday nights from 1987 to 2005. Berman was at his wisecracking best; Jackson was a legend. But when NBC Sports acquired the rights to Sunday night football games in ’06, NFL Primetime, in its original popular form, went away. ESPN has brought it back in different formats (remember The Blitz?) and on different platforms, including digitally on the ESPN+ streaming platform. But the show was never the same.

The NBA should be careful what it wishes for, because sometimes the best trades are the ones you never make. Maybe WBD’s buzzer-beating match attempt will keep TNT in the hoops business beyond 2025. Or maybe the threat of a lengthy, expensive lawsuit by WBD spurs the league to award TNT a smaller, face-saving fourth package. Or not. The bottom line is that losing this show would be a huge loss. Save Inside the NBA.

Michael McCarthy’s “Tuned In” column is at your fingertips every week with the latest insights and ongoings around sports media. If he hears it, you will, too.

This September, the column will come to life as a one-day event bringing together industry experts to discuss media trends and the future of fan viewership. The event will take place in New York on Sept. 10 at Times Center (242 W. 41st St.).

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