Warner Bros. Discovery has retained Charles Barkley beyond next year even after it likely loses NBA broadcast rights. Beyond Barkley popping up as a field correspondent for everything from the MLB postseason to Mountain West football games, it sounds like WBD is exploring the idea of a sports variety show with a similar format to Inside the NBA that goes beyond the hardwood and into every corner of the sports world.
While Inside Sports sounds fun in theory , WBD will have a hard time crafting a show that draws the same audience as Inside the NBA and justifies exorbitant salaries for Barkley and his cohosts.
As a refresher, WBD still has a significant portfolio of sports rights it can sic Barkley and Co. on:
Outside of a dry patch in the late summer and early fall, WBD has enough to keep the Inside guys busy. And as the company negotiates with the NBA in court proceedings expected to last into the fall, it could likely strike a deal on highlight and film rights. An hour-long show running through all these sports and other big stories would be plenty entertaining.
But the fundamental issue with Inside Sports is that there would be no NBA. As a pre-and postgame show, Inside the NBA draws millions of viewers, often making it the most-watched weeknight non-sports game on television . As a comparison, Scott Van Pelt’s midnight SportsCenter rarely clears 1 million — and even it often has a game as a lead-in. It just doesn’t seem like many people would tune in.
Television isn’t the only medium WBD cares about, though. As it attempts to stock up its Max streaming service and still has its Bleacher Report sports brand to worry about as well as its digital and social video channels, Inside carries significant value there. Despite being hosted by a bunch of dudes in their 50s and 60s, Inside remains one of the more viral shows on television. Many of its classic moments had nothing to do with basketball. Bringing Barkley together with Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny Smith and Ernie Johnson is bound to make for good content.
Is there a world in which Inside becomes a brand beyond one show? A live broadcast at AEW All In or Ohio State vs. Texas in a CFP opener could work. Shoulder programming like Inside the NBA is always part marketing, why not just turn that dial up a bit and have Inside Sports be a marketing vehicle for TNT’s entire library?
A final possibility could see WBD meld Inside with Barkley’s short-lived CNN show King Charles . WBD could let O’Neal and Smith walk and turn Inside into an even broader show . Barkley did reel in newsmaking interviews on King Charles , which was conceived under old management, but the show was hidden late on Wednesday nights and not promoted much. Barkley and Johnson could capably chat with major sports and political figures in a format that could air across WBD’s sports and news platforms on air and online.
That’s the content calculation, but the finances are even tougher to figure. Sportico’s Anthony Crupi reported recently that losing the NBA could knock off 7 percent of WBD’s EBITDA, or estimated cash profit. WBD’s ad sales just dropped 10 percent last quarter, a year out from losing the NBA. The company just wrote down its TV assets by $9.1 billion.
Paying an expensive marketing figurehead like Barkley to do a show outside his wheelhouse that still demands significant overhead to put on simply may not make sense much longer for WBD. Barkley was an NBA player! Letting talent do an offbeat passion project is something rich media companies do — which is to say not many these days.
Until WBD can prove it has a path toward reducing debt and regenerating the (ad and carriage) revenue it will lose from dropping the NBA, it won’t make any sense to pay an NBA legend to cover tennis and interview presidential hopefuls at $20 million a year.
The post How would ‘Inside the NBA’ without the NBA even work? appeared first on Awful Announcing .
Most Popular
Comments / 0