When Warner Bros. Discovery lost the NBA broadcasting rights to NBC and Amazon, the news effectively meant that the game’s best studio show, Inside the NBA, will end after the upcoming season. And it also meant that Charles Barkley could have been among the most sought after sports media free agents ever.
That made his decision to stay with Warner Bros. Discovery Sports (formerly Turner Sports) and TNT all the more shocking. Instead of retiring or moving to ESPN/NBC/Amazon, Barkley decided to remain loyal to the team he’s worked with for decades in sports media. And he was well aware of just how much money he was potentially leaving on the table by doing so.
The reason behind that, though, was pure class from Barkley.
In an interview with Dan Le Batard, Barkley said that he left a minimum $100 million on the table by staying with WBD Sports.
How much did Charles Barkley lose by returning to TNT?
"A minimum of $100 million. A minimum."
Barkley explains why he chose to return to Turner Sports as a broadcasting free agent.
"The number-one thing for me is that my people at Turner get to keep their jobs another year." pic.twitter.com/lGLZgg4nFZ
— Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz (@LeBatardShow) August 13, 2024
But for him, his top priority was keeping all the people employed whom he has worked with at TNT. He said:
“As long as I got my people safe at TNT, man, I feel really good.”
He joked that he would actually have to do work had he gone to one of the other networks, so he was more than thrilled to stay at WBD (which still has March Madness, NHL and MLB playoff rights). TNT will have options for Barkley going forward.
