Charles Barkley has been talking about retiring from TV for almost as long as he’s been on TV. The Hall of Famer long insisted that he would call it quits from TNT when he turned 60, but instead inked a massive 10-year deal with the network just ahead of his 60th birthday.
That deal coincided with Shaq, Kenny Smith, and Ernie Johnson all re-signing with Turner, locking the Inside the NBA crew into long-term deals. Apparently, that was done with the upcoming NBA media rights negotiations in mind, as Warner Bros. Discovery was hoping that having the beloved show committed to sticking around for most of the next deal would help their cause in keeping the NBA. As we now know, that wasn’t enough and negotiations between the league and network fell through with TNT apparently balking at the NBA’s initial asking price in the exclusive negotiating window, then getting outbid by NBC for the B-package. TNT attempted to save a piece of the pie by exercising matching rights on Amazon’s package, but the NBA quickly denied that was a full match as that goes well beyond the financial element.
As a result, the future of Inside is up in the air, although Barkley and TNT have announced he won’t be leaving the network and will continue doing the show, in some form, beyond the 2024-25 season. Barkley has no clue what that looks like — and says TNT doesn’t either — but wants to keep his friends employed as long as possible, which is why he says he’s not following through on his promise to retire after this season. As he tells it, it’s the second time he’s put off retiring at the request of TNT, insisting to Bill Simmons he was really planning to ride off into the sunset at 60, but they asked him to stay through the negotiations.
“So my original game plan was to retire at 60. They’re like, you gotta stay til the new deal is done. And I’m like ‘F***,” Barkley said.
“Cause they needed you for the negotiations,” Simmons followed up.
“Yes, but little did I know they were gonna f*** that up,” Barkley said with a laugh. “And I was like, you guys been great to me, I’ll stay for two more years. Next year was supposed to be my last year, and I was gonna walk off into the sunset. It’s gonna be interesting cause I have zero idea what we’re gonna do.”
Barkley went on to explain that TNT said they haven’t figured out exactly what the show will look like after next season, as they don’t have the NBA and would need to pay for highlights, but he wants his friends to have jobs so he’ll stick it out. That said, he doesn’t seem tremendously confident in the WBD leadership to get it right.
As for the retirement claims, Simmons told him point blank he didn’t believe he was going to retire, and I tend to agree. Barkley loves to talk, as evidenced by how often he does various radio spots and podcasts (like this one), and it’s not like he’s hurting for time on the golf course doing the show once a week during the season. However, I do believe that’s one of the reasons he stuck to his guns when it came to not going to another network, because ESPN and even Amazon and NBC would likely have wanted him on air more often than he is accustomed to at TNT, where he keeps busy during March Madness and the Playoffs, but is otherwise on just Thursdays.
