LIV Golf has shaken the golf world to its core, as the Saudi-backed league has thrown massive amounts of guaranteed money at some of the top golfers in the world to poach them away from the PGA Tour. The Greg Norman-helmed league poses an existential threat to the PGA Tour’s supremacy as the home of the world’s top players and has led the Tour to already try to make some major changes to coax their top players to stick around with the promise of bigger prize purses and some exclusive events for the top guys.
To this point, LIV Golf has almost exclusively been a story in golf circles, with no real impact elsewhere on the world of sports. That could change very soon as Charles Barkley is being courted by the tour to join their broadcast team (which is currently just on YouTube with no TV network partnership). Barkley has made clear his willingness to listen to the overtures of LIV Golf, as his love of golf is well known and he’s not one to turn down a check either, even in the face of the backlash others have dealt with for signing on for the overt sportswashing efforts of the Saudi government.
At first, it was assumed Barkley would look to join LIV, which only has eight events currently (moving to 10 next year), on top of his TNT duties as the face of Inside the NBA, but according to Dan Patrick, Barkley told him that if he were to take the LIV deal, he knows he’d have to step away from TNT’s NBA coverage.
Dan Patrick says he was told by Charles Barkley he may need to leave TNT if he joins LIV Golf pic.twitter.com/2brmHS39K0
— Brandon Contes (@BrandonContes) July 19, 2022
Barkley, who turns 60 next February, has long said he’d step away from Inside the NBA after he turns 60, but this is not the way anyone would’ve anticipated that happening. One of the most beloved figures in sports going to LIV and walking away from the NBA desk would send massive waves through the sports media landscape. The question is whether Barkley, who has a Q-rating about as high as anyone, could withstand the backlash that would come and be an actual draw for LIV, particularly when you consider NBA fans would not be happy that he left the basketball desk.
Hopefully this is all just Barkley ensuring that Turner comes correct with an improved offer to keep him long-term, because Inside the NBA wouldn’t be the same without him, but we’ll find out how real his interest is soon enough.
