Charles Barkley is not an attorney. He’s better known for dropping great one-liners on Inside the NBA than he is for offering legal advice.
But Barkley shared some interesting legal thoughts Monday about Warner Bros. Discovery’s huge breach of contract lawsuit against the NBA.
The former NBA star has made it clear he doesn’t like the premise of the suit, saying the “ NBA clearly wanted to break up” with TNT .” The network’s parent company, WBD, sued the NBA , claiming it had the right to match an offer to retain TV rights beyond the 2024-25 season. The NBA thought otherwise, awarding those rights to ESPN, NBC and Amazon.
In an appearance on Podcast P with Paul George , Barkley said he has a theory on why WBD’s matching bid failed.
First, Barkley offered a standard “I’m not an attorney” legal disclaimer, in his typically colorful style.
“I’m talking out my a**, I want to make that clear,” Barkley said. “I think the NBA said, ‘You can match,’ but they meant ESPN or NBC. You don’t get to match the Amazon offer… Because when we said you all could match, Amazon didn’t exist. I don’t think (NBA commissioner) Adam Silver would leave himself open to lose a lawsuit. He was a lawyer , and I think he’s too smart.”
“We have filed a lawsuit, but I think the NBA is like, ‘Yeah, it’s too late, we don’t care.'”
Barkley contends the NBA wanted WBD to match the more lucrative part of the rights package, the offers by ESPN and NBC.
“When we signed the original deal like six-eight years ago, ya’ll had to match NBC or ESPN, which is like another $500 million a year. And I think our people were like, ‘we’re going to try to match the cheapest one.’ And Adam’s like, ‘Yeah, that s**** not going to work.'”
Barkley’s hunch and whatever behind-the-scenes information he’s heard matches earlier reports. Puck’s John Ourand recently reported that WBD’s attempt to match Amazon’s offer surprised the NBA, because Amazon had a streaming-only deal. In that regard, Prime Video’s footprint dwarfs WBD’s Max streaming service.
These points will be hashed out between attorneys from both sides. Barkley offered a prediction.
“I don’t think Adam is dumb enough where he would open himself up to lose that lawsuit,” Barkley said.
Barkley said it’s hard for him to watch his fellow co-workers struggle with the situation.
“I was taking everybody out, trying to keep their spirits up,” Barkley said. “They were like, ‘Man, I’m married, I got a wife, I got kids, I got a mortgage, and I ain’t go no f****** job.
“It really hurt me that people, my friends, were talking like that. Man, I ain’t never been in that situation in my life, where I was going to lose my job and I had a family to take care of.
“It was really heartbreaking. It just really sucks, man. I can’t believe we screwed it up. So next year’s going to be a bittersweet year.”
[ Podcast P ]
The post Charles Barkley offers theory on WBD’s NBA media rights loss appeared first on Awful Announcing .
Most Popular
Comments / 0