While his primary work these days is as a NBA analyst, Charles Barkley often weighs in on other matters. Those include news and current events (on social media, in interviews, and on his former CNN show King Charles with Gayle King), other sports (particularly hockey), and business negotiations.
On that latter front, Barkley has been remarkably vocal throughout the recent process of NBA rights negotiations and those going away from Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT Sports division, where he works. He’s criticized WBD executives, including CEO David Zaslav, and he’s said a whole lot about what might be ahead for him and/or Inside The NBA , sometimes to the consternation of his coworkers. And, around WBD suing the NBA Friday for choosing Amazon over them for the “C” package and declining their match option , Barkley told Andrew Marchand of The Athletic he doesn’t agree with that decision to sue :
“I wouldn’t want them to sue,” Barkley said. “The NBA clearly wanted to break up with us. I don’t want to be in a relationship where I have to sue somebody to be in it. That makes zero sense.
“If you have to sue somebody to stay in a relationship, do you think that is a healthy relationship?”
…Barkley reiterated the people he really feels bad for in this whole situation are the ones behind the scenes who aren’t making millions.
“I feel bad for the people I work with,” Barkley said. “A lot of good people will lose their jobs. I have to give TNT credit, they tried everything to try and stay in the relationship, but the NBA wanted to move on. It’s that simple.”
Barkley does have a point there on the NBA seemingly looking to get out of this relationship. And there are a couple of factors to that, from the appeal of working with Amazon given its national and international scale (and scale in many areas beyond broadcasting, including merchandise sales) to the handling of these negotiations by WBD execs like Zaslav and the parting of ways with key TNT Sports (formerly WBD Sports, formerly Turner Sports) figures like David Levy and Lenny Daniels who were important to the NBA’s relationship with that company. And Barkley is correct that court-mandated specific performance to force a league to work with a broadcaster they didn’t choose would be highly unusual and awkward.
But lawsuits often aren’t about getting specific performance, but rather financial compensation. It’s definitely not certain that WBD will get that; the NBA’s line so far is that the WBD claims are “ without merit, ” and it’s possible the league could win in court. But this also could end in a settlement or in a WBD win, and that could get them at least some money to make up for the (as they see it) dismissal of their matching rights.
At least trying to fight this in court has some other potential benefits for WBD. For one thing, it’s trying to reinforce their message (to other leagues, advertisers, investors, business analysts, fans and beyond) that they did “try everything to try and stay in the relationship,” as Barkley said. That presents them as a still-serious sports player and downplays narratives of their mistakes here in favor of the NBA looking for a way out and a deal with Amazon.
That also could matter in negotiations with multichannel video programming distributors (cable, satellite, and virtual MVPDs) for continued carriage of TNT. WBD has picked up other sports to help fill the void here, but many are still wondering what the channel will look like (and what per-subscriber rates and carriage it will command) post-NBA. Their choice to not go quietly into that good night, but instead rage against the dying of their NBA rights can be seen as a strategy to insist they’ll still be a big sports player going forwards, and that may be important for striking future rights deals elsewhere.
And while this could set up acrimony with the NBA, that really doesn’t matter too much as long as the sides can work well enough together for this final 2024-25 NBA on TNT season. These deals are for 11 years, so there won’t be an opportunity to get back in with the NBA before that. And even tensions from a lawsuit will likely be significantly lessened by the next round of negotiations if WBD does want to try and get back in then.
As for Barkley himself, he walked back his own plans to retire a bit Friday, telling Dan Patrick he’d spoken to all three broadcasters that did acquire NBA rights “for the last month.” He said his intention is still to retire. He also said he expects WBD to pay the rest of his contract in full, or else he’ll become a free agent. He reiterated those points to Marchand as well .
At any rate, it’s understandable why Barkley is making these comments. He’s quite right that litigation seems unlikely to force an actual NBA on TNT continuation. And there is a chance litigation here may make things a little awkward for on-air NBA commentators like Barkley. But the litigation does have potential points beyond that. And while many things from WBD’s management throughout this saga can be criticized, suing to enforce rights they believe they had that were disregarded doesn’t seem unreasonable, even if that likely won’t get the NBA back.
[ The Athletic ]
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