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Charles Barkley: TNT sucks, they haven't told us when we're going to work
“We don’t know,” Barkley responded. “This has been one of the worst, TNT just sucks to be honest with you, Bill. They made this deal. They haven’t told us when we’re going to work. They haven’t told us how it’s going to work. Because, we’ve been talking behind the scenes, like … after the game are we going to get anytime or are they gonna say, ‘Hey, you guys got to go to SportsCenter.’ “That’s the best part of our show, after the game [where] we can, like, have conversation and have fun,” Barkley continued. “Are they gonna say, ‘You guys got three minutes, five minutes, 15, 20, 30, 45?’ Or are we going to go straight to SportsCenter? They haven’t given us an answer whatsoever. And TNT, I think they sold the show and they haven’t been noncommunicable [sic] at all.”
She will continue as a studio analyst for the NCAA championship, broadcast jointly with CBS, and will also work as lead analyst for TNT’s inaugural seasons of Big East and Big 12 basketball. Parker continues as a lead studio analyst for TNT’s coverage of the Unrivaled women’s basketball league, and as a Bleacher Report contributor.
The TNT-produced “Inside the NBA” is scheduled to air in a half-hour timeslot following the first ESPN doubleheader of the NBA season October 22, according to the network’s advance schedule. The show would run from 12:05-12:35 AM ET, leading into a Bristol-based “SportsCenter” at 12:35.
For the first time since 1989, the NBA will not be broadcast on TNT. And while that fact has been clear for some time now, Charles Barkley is still mad about it. Barkley, the star of TNT’s crown jewel, “Inside the NBA,” will still be a part of the league’s national television programming. But it will not, of course, be on TNT; instead, he, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, and Shaquille O’Neal will occasionally appear on ESPN as part of a licensing deal in which “Inside” will be produced by TNT’s crew but broadcast on ESPN.
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The agreement, while helpful in partially justifying Barkley and Co.’s massive deals with Warner Bros. Discovery (TNT’s parent company), remains a point of great annoyance for the former NBA star. “TNT never came to us like grown folks and said, ‘Hey guys, we’re probably going to lose to NBA,’ which we could have understood,” Barkley said on the ‘Pardon My Take’ podcast. “But I thought they sucked. I told them they sucked. Because there’s a way you treat people. Because if they had came to us and said, ‘Hey, you know what? It’s a lot of money.’ Because, you know, we were paying 1.2 billion dollars a year and it went to 2.5 billion. That’s a lot of money for 11 years. If they had said ‘it’s not a good deal,’ we would have understood. But to let us hear about it — and I’ll tell you something really s—-y about it, too: I found out that we got traded to ESPN from ESPN.”
Dell Curry isn’t going anywhere, and neither is Eric Collins. Although the longtime Charlotte Hornets TV voices have been added to Amazon Prime’s new broadcast team for the 2025-26 season, Curry and Collins won’t be leaving their current positions with the organization. Curry will remain the team’s main analyst for FanDuel Sports Southeast for the vast majority of games and Collins will still handle play-by-play duties for a bulk of Charlotte’s games. Amazon Prime, which will air NBA games for the first time, officially announced its broadcast team on Thursday. Noted TNT play-by-play voice Kevin Harlan and former NBA player Brent Barry are also being hired for the streaming channel’s game content, joining Curry and Collins.
The NBA and TNT Sports are parting ways again. TNT Sports will no longer operate NBA TV and NBA.com as of October 1, CEO Luis Silberwasser said in a Friday memo obtained by Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports. NBA TV, which will continue to air live games next season, had been run by TNT Sports since 2008.
While TNT’s settlement with the NBA requires it to create content for the NBA’s digital platforms, it is unclear whether there will be any TNT-produced content on NBA TV beyond the end of the current agreement. The decision is not a surprise, as early reporting that TNT would continue running NBA TV and NBA.com as part of its settlement was immediately walked back. While Silberwasser said Friday that TNT had been in negotiations to continue running NBA TV, it is not clear whether the league was ever receptive.
With NBA TV originating from TNT’s Atlanta studios, the league-owned channel had for all intents and purposes become a part of the TNT Sports family. Most, if not all, of its on-air regulars held other roles on TNT programming — whether the now-concluded NBA package, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, or in the case of hosts and play-by-play voices, any number of properties outside of basketball.
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Michael Jordan is not getting $40 million from NBC
Smith added Jordan will call him to disagree with things he said on-air, and while he’s not as aggressive about it as Kobe Bryant used to be, he’s “candid.” “I don’t think he’s going to be shy about saying what he sees—at all,” Smith concluded. “As a matter of fact, if he is, he’s going to have to deal with me because I’m going to be in his ear telling him, ‘You’re getting shy now. That’s what we’re doing? That ain’t the MJ I know!’” Elsewhere in the segment, Bet-David referenced internet rumors that NBC is paying Jordan $40 million annually. A source tells Front Office Sports that this number, which is about twice what Charles Barkley makes per year from TNT, is inaccurate. NBC declined to comment.
Elsewhere in the segment, Bet-David referenced internet rumors that NBC is paying Jordan $40 million annually. A source tells Front Office Sports that this number, which is about twice what Charles Barkley makes per year from TNT, is inaccurate.
What has Carlisle done for you, and what have you done for Carlisle? Lloyd Pierce: Well, I think Rick believes in me. I think he believes in all of our staff. He’s allowed all of us to coach our specific areas and really have a strong presence and voice. We did an exercise a few years ago where we took a word and used it to describe ourselves. He said, ‘I think I’m very resourceful.’ And for me to see him operate as a very resourceful person has been very beneficial. Whether it’s reaching out to [the media], reaching out to an agent with regards to one of our players and trying to help echo the same messaging, or like he did the other day, taking the grandest stage for the Indiana Pacers and making sure he gave a sincere thank you to Ernie Johnson and TNT in their final broadcast call. He’s very resourceful in what to say and how to say it, and when to say it and who to speak to in appropriate times. And our players understand that he’s always thinking ahead. He’s always thinking of advantages and that’s the job. The job isn’t the X’s and O’s. He lets us do a lot of that. But he is great about managing the situations, the moments, the players, the opportunity, and that’s how you earn trust and belief of everyone.
Saturday’s Knicks-Pacers NBA Eastern Conference Finals Game 6 averaged 8.12 million viewers across TNT and truTV, down 7% from the previous conference final Game 6 — Celtics-Heat two years ago (8.71M) — but the most-watched game of the NBA season. The previous high was 7.91 million for Lakers-Warriors on Christmas, and the previous playoff high was 7.35 million for Lakers-Timberwolves in the first round.
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