Charles Barkley as soon as claimed he wasn’t a job mannequin. However his most up-to-date motion appears to belie that.
Barkley mentioned on the Dan Le Batard Present podcast immediately that he left a minimal of $100 million “on the desk” to stick with Turner Sports activities. His determination to stay with Warner Bros. Discovery’s sports activities division got here after TNT was omitted of the NBA’s 11-year media rights deal.
Since TNT Sports activities misplaced that contract scrum, the NBA’s upcoming 2024-25 season can be its final with TNT, because the league strikes on in 2025-26 to the NBA’s new 11-year deal for video games with ESPN guardian The Walt Disney Firm, NBC, and Amazon Prime Video.
“The No. 1 factor for me is my folks from Turner get to maintain their jobs for at the very least one other yr,” Barkley, informed Le Batard. “That’s all I used to be involved with.”
The choice was not simple. He admitted that it “100% was an important feeling” to get provides from exterior networks recruiting him.
“I wish to thank all of these networks for reaching out to me,” the NBA Corridor of Famer mentioned. “It was actually humbling and funky, to be sincere with you. Though they have been throwing loopy numbers, like rattling, however so long as I acquired my folks secure at TNT man, I really feel actually good.”
“Like I say, they’re going to pay me to go and speak about nothing,” Barkley mentioned, including a quip, “I in all probability would’ve needed to do an sincere day’s work if I went to a kind of different networks.”
Barkley signed a 10-year take care of TNT Sports activities in 2022. He has served as a commentator on the channel for the award-winning NBA on TNT and Contained in the NBA, the latter of which he co-hosts with Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, and Shaquille O’Neal.
