Charles Barkley said on Friday that next season will be his last on TV, no matter what happens with the NBA’s media deals.
The Hall of Fame player has spent the last 24 years working as an incredibly popular studio analyst for TNT, which could lose the rights to broadcast NBA games after next season. But no matter where the games end up, Barkley says he won’t be on the broadcast.
“There’s been a lot of noise around our network the last few months and I just want to say I’ve talked to all the other networks, but I ain’t going nowhere other than TNT,” Barkley said while working on NBA TV’s NBA finals postgame show.
The NBA’s current deals with ABC-ESPN and Turner Sports expire after next season and the league has been talking with NBC, ESPN and Amazon, among other networks and platforms, about what comes next. Any rights deal is estimated to be worth around $76bn for the NBA over a decade. The NBA commissioner, Adam Silver, said last week he hopes new long-term deals will be completed shortly.
Barkley and broadcast teammates Ernie Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith have discussed their uncertain future on their popular Inside the NBA studio show. Barkley would seemingly draw interest from any network televising NBA, but the 61-year-old has decided that 25 years will be enough.
“I hope the NBA stays with TNT, but for me personally, I wanted you guys to hear it from me … I wanted to tell my NBA TV and TNT family that I’m not going to another network, but I’m going to pass the baton to either Jamal Crawford or Vince Carter or you Steve [Smith],” Barkley said on Friday. “But next year, I’m going to just retire after 25 years, and I just wanted to say thank you. And I wanted y’all to hear it from me first.”
