Charles Barkley was on The Bill Simmons Podcast this week where he talked about a number of topics, including Olympic basketball, the Boston Celtics, the WNBA and Caitlin Clark and finally, his future at TNT.
Barkley had announced he would retire following the 2024-2025 season—the last that Turner has NBA rights. Since then Barkley has changed his mind and said he left more than $100 million on the table to stay with TNT for the remainder of 10-year deal after the network announced plans to keep Inside the NBA going after they lose the NBA.
If you were wondering how that would work, you're not alone. Towards the end of the podcast, while still sounding very interested in retirement, Barkley told Simmons he had "zero idea what we're going to do." And from the way he tells the story, Turner doesn't know either.
"They don't even have no idea what we're going to do," Barkley said. "So I'm sitting in this meeting in Philly. We wanna keep doing the show. I was like, what do you mean? Like, we want to keep ya'll together. Well, I would consider that because I want all my friends to keep their jobs. I said what are we gonna do? We haven't figured that out yet. I'm like, what? I says, we won't have basketball. What the hell are we gonna do? And so that's the thing that's fascinating. Like I say, I know we got one more year with the NBA then we're going to lose it. And they want to do the show at least another year, but I'm like we don't even have basketball. We're going to pay for highlights!"
Barkley also took the opportunity to take multiple shots at the company saying they "f----- up" negotiations, which is a message he recently shared with Dan Patrick in a more safe for work fashion.
Simmons also asked why another NBA broadcast partner wouldn't just poach Inside the NBA entirely. Barkley didn't think that Ernie Johnson would leave Atlanta, so Simmons suggested they just keep doing the show in Atlanta with the existing infrastructure.
Barkley on the future of Inside the NBA pt2 pic.twitter.com/4zZrVfS2Zd
— Stephen Douglas (@Stephen_Douglas) September 5, 2024
"Hey, everything is on the board. Hey Bill, as I told you earlier, I have, we have zero f------ idea what's going to happen after this year. Zero."
Whether Ernie Johnson wants to leave Turner and TNT for another network remains to be seen, but between the uncertainty and confusion about the future of the show, it's anyone's best guess what will happen to any of the Inside the NBA crew once the next basketball season ends.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Charles Barkley Says TNT Has ‘Zero Idea’ About the Future of ‘Inside the NBA'.
