*New York (CNN) — “Inside the NBA” host Charles Barkley on Friday condemned the NBA’s rejection of a matching offer from TNT’s parent company to broadcast the league’s games for the next decade, blasting the NBA for prioritizing “money over the fans.”
In a statement posted on his Instagram account, Barkley wrote, “Clearly the NBA has wanted to break with us from the beginning. I’m not sure TNT ever had a chance.”
“TNT matched the money, but the league knows Amazon and these tech companies are the only ones willing to pay for the rights when they double in the future,” Barkley added. “The NBA didn’t want to piss them off. It’s a sad day when owners and commissioners choose money over the fans. It just sucks.”
The comments came after the NBA on Wednesday rejected an offer from Warner Bros. Discovery to match Amazon’s $1.8 billion per year bid to carry the league’s games starting with the 2025-26 season.
The decision set up a potential legal showdown between the NBA and WBD, the parent company of TNT and CNN, which maintains it has matching rights to any broadcast offer.
Barkley, who hosts the iconic TNT program “Inside the NBA” alongside Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, and Shaquille O’Neal, has remained mostly mum on the situation since he condemned WBD executives in May for “screw[ing] this thing up.”
“These people I work with, they screwed this thing up — clearly,” Barkley unloaded.
On Friday, Barkley told The Athletic that he would field offers from NBC, ESPN, and Prime Video — with whom he said he has recently spoken — unless WBD can guarantee his 10-year, $210 million contract will be paid.
“My thing was, ‘Wait, y’all f— up, I didn’t f— up, why do I have to take a pay cut,’” Barkley said.
While Barkley said that Johnson wouldn’t switch networks, he told The Athletic that he hasn’t spoken to O’Neal or Smith about their intentions pending outside offers.
“It’s going to all go to streaming in 11 years,” Barkley said of sports media rights, calling the entire affair a “cash grab” because “in 11 years nobody’s going to be able to afford these rights by streaming.”
“They’re kind of getting their cake and eating it, too,” Barkley said of the NBA. “They got ESPN and NBC and they got streaming.”
In a statement Wednesday, WBD criticized the NBA’s decision to reject its matching offer, saying it had “grossly misinterpreted” its contractual rights and vowed to take “appropriate action.”
“We have matched the Amazon offer, as we have a contractual right to do, and do not believe the NBA can reject it,” a TNT spokesperson said in a statement. “In doing so, they are rejecting the many fans who continue to show their unwavering support for our best-in-class coverage, delivered through the full combined reach of WBD’s video-first distribution platforms — including TNT, home to our four-decade partnership with the league, and Max, our leading streaming service. We think they have grossly misinterpreted our contractual rights with respect to the 2025-26 season and beyond, and we will take appropriate action.”
WBD executives have suggested in recent weeks that if the NBA declined to accept its matching offer it could bring a lawsuit to enforce its contractual rights to match another bid.
The months of dealmaking and uncertainty over the NBA media rights had set off alarms both inside and out of WBD, raising the prospect that TNT Sports’ nearly four decades as an NBA partner and home to the beloved “Inside the NBA” show could come to an end.
The league said Wednesday that its new 11-year media deal with Amazon will complement its latest slate of broadcast, cable, and streaming agreements, which were also inked with NBCUniversal and Disney, worth a combined $77 billion.
“Our new global media agreements with Disney, NBCUniversal, and Amazon will maximize the reach and accessibility of NBA games for fans in the United States and around the world,” Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, said in a statement.
“These partners will distribute our content across a wide range of platforms and help transform the fan experience over the next decade.”
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