‘It sucks for all of us.’ Charles Barkley says the quiet part aloud as TNT’s NBA future in doubt

The situation at Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT network “sucks, plain and simple,” Charles Barkley bluntly said Thursday.The former NBA star and “Inside the NBA” co-host was speaking on “The Dan Patrick Show” about the increasing likelihood that the network will soon lose the rights to air the league’s games next year, a prospect that could mark the end of the beloved show on the Turner network. Barkley, who said he feels “so bad for the people” he works with, laid blame at the feet of the “clowns” atop WBD.

The situation at Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT network “sucks, plain and simple,” Charles Barkley bluntly said Thursday. The former NBA star and “Inside the NBA” co-host was speaking on “The Dan Patrick Show” about the increasing likelihood that the network will soon lose the rights to air the league’s games next year, a prospect that could mark the end of the beloved show on the Turner network. Barkley, who said he feels “so bad for the people” he works with, laid blame at the feet of the “clowns” atop WBD. “These people I work with, they screwed this thing up — clearly,” Barkley unloaded. The host did little to hide his anger as he cited WBD boss David Zaslav’s now-infamous 2022 comment that the company didn’t “have to have the NBA,” suggesting the remark likely “pissed” off NBA commissioner Adam Silver and helped lead to the current situation. “It sucks for all of us,” Barkley added. The uncertainty and fear voiced by Barkley comes as the NBA moves to renew its broadcast rights with media partners, seeking a significant increase in the cost to air the league’s games. WBD, the parent company of CNN and the Turner networks, had an exclusive negotiating window with the NBA to renew its contract, but it expired last month without a deal, allowing other media companies to bid for the broadcast rights. Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw reported Thursday night that the NBA had asked WBD for $2.3 billion to secure the highly coveted rights, roughly $1 billion more than it reportedly pays under its current deal to air the games on TNT, its streaming service Max, and other cable networks. During the negotiation, Zaslav “topped out around” $2.1 billion, Shaw reported.