The Line to Hire Charles Barkley Is Already Getting Long

Amazon Prime Video, ESPN, and NBC Sports: Get in line—and get your checkbooks ready.

On Wednesday night, Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT was slammed by the bad news it had been fearing for months: The NBA was pulling the plug on its 40-year relationship and moving its rights to Amazon Prime Video after the 2024–2025 NBA season. It was a brutal setback for a network that had done so much great coverage of The Association over the years. 

But Charles Barkley was wise enough to demand an out clause in his last contract negotiation, which enables him to become a TV free agent if TNT loses NBA rights. With TNT likely to take the NBA to court, the network’s not out of the game yet. Now, odds are the NBA will be on Prime, not TNT, starting with the 2025–2026 season. As “Tuned In” predicted May 2, that would instantly send Sir Charles’s star into the stratosphere.

The Chuckster could command $20 million–plus offers from the NBA’s new trio of rights partners: newcomer Prime; incumbent ABC/ESPN; and former broadcast partner NBC, which held the rights during the Michael Jordan golden era from 1990 to 2002. ESPN is already eying Barkley and the entire cast of Inside the NBA, say my sources. Ditto for Prime.

After the NBA and Prime formally announced the deal, Front Office Sports spoke one-on-one with Jay Marine, global head of sports for Prime Video. Marine spoke carefully about his interest in Barkley and the rest of the Inside the NBA cast. But he professed his strong admiration for Barkley and the show, noting it inspired Prime’s own Thursday Night Football wraparound programming with host Charissa Thompson.

“Inside the NBA, in our opinion, is the gold standard for studio programming. I’m a huge fan. We’re all big fans. It is so entertaining. Those guys are hilarious. The chemistry is off the charts,” Marine told FOS. “In fact, it’s what we really held up as the standard and our inspiration when we were designing our TNF pregame show. … We’ll have to see how all this plays out. We just signed the deal. They’ll have no shortage of options depending on what they want to do.”

As Marine hinted, Barkley might not be the only one in line for a big payday. Any of the newest NBA rights partners could try to hire the entire cast—effectively recreating Inside the NBA on a different platform. 

Prime could build its NBA studio coverage around the Inside the NBA team. With a market capitalization of $2 trillion, and more than 200 million subscribers worldwide, Prime could afford the cast en masse. Meanwhile, ESPN has been lusting after Barkley for years, with its own NBA Countdown studio show struggling through a revolving door of cast changes. Don’t forget ESPN solved its Monday Night Football problem by raiding Fox Sports to hire away Troy Aikman and Joe Buck. As for NBC, who would be better than a ‘90s icon like Barkley to reboot the network’s “Roundball Rock” coverage of The Association? 

Or it could be a two-step process. Barkley told Dan Patrick he could hire Shaquille O’Neal–Kenny Smith–Ernie Johnson through his own production company, then sell the show to the highest bidder.

Still, TNT announced long-term contract extensions for Barkley, O’Neal, Smith, and Johnson in October 2022. Would a litigious TNT let the other three out of their deals if they don’t have out clauses like Barkley? Plus, a show like Inside the NBA is also greater than the sum of its parts. If you take the program from TNT, you likely lose many of the behind-the-scenes staffers in Atlanta who’ve helped make it a success. 

There’s also the question of whether the cast want to keep doing TV. Barkley said he’s retiring after his 25th season with TNT next year. But many TV insiders question whether Barkley, depressed by the state of negotiations, was speaking more from the heart than the head. O’Neal makes enough money from endorsements to do his own thing. Johnson’s a TNT lifer who wouldn’t move to a different network. And Smith has talked frequently about leaving TV for a GM job with an NBA franchise. Plus, iconic shows that go off the air, only to return, are rarely as good as the original.

Yet money usually talks loudest on sports TV. If there’s a bidding war for Barkley & Co., their minds could change in a hurry. So, don’t shovel dirt on Inside the NBA’s grave just yet. The cast may have “gone fishin’,” as they like to say on the show. But an unplugged Barkley and the rest of the crew will be back on TNT for their swan song this fall.

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.

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