Charles Barkley turned down a huge $100 million offer— just so TNT staff wouldn't lose their jobs

When Warner Brothers, Discovery Sports (formerly Turner Sports), and TNT lost NBA's broadcasting rights, the future of the popular studio show, "Inside the NBA," was in jeopardy. As ESPN, NBC, and Amazon Prime, won the rights, the show's star analyst, Charles Barkley was expected to make a move. However, Barkley left $100 million on the table as he chose to stay, according to his claim on the Dan Le Batard Show podcast.

Loyalty Over Cash

In one of the largest shake-ups in sports broadcasting, TNT missed out on an 11-year rights deal to broadcast the NBA from 2025. While the channel lost the $76 billion deal, it didn’t lose its apex presenter. The 11-time member of the NBA All-Star roster and Hall of Famer, who served as an analyst on TNT since 2000, chose to stay with the broadcaster beyond 2025. 

Barkley has been appearing on the award-winning show "Inside the NBA," alongside moderator Ernie Johnson, basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal, and two-time NBA champion Kenny "The Jet" Smith to provide his analysis. 

Thus, Barkley's exit would have hurt the channel big time. but while appearing on the Dan Le Batard Show podcast, Barkley said he won't be leaving any time soon. Barkley, who signed a 10-year agreement with TNT Sports in 2022, is set to enter the 25th year with the company.

He shared that while his contract allowed him to leave and sign a deal with one of the other winning networks, he voluntarily chose to stay on board until the 2025-2026 season to make sure that his team didn't lose their livelihoods.

Barkley claimed that he left a minimum of $100 million “on the table” from other networks, to stay with his team for their final year together. However, he admitted that the decision to stay was not easy. He shared that it was a humbling experience as networks were throwing "crazy numbers" at him. "It was a great feeling, and I wanna thank all those networks for reaching out to me," Barkley said on the podcast. "As long as I got my people safe at TNT, I feel really good," he added.

In an official statement released by TNT,  Barklley had expressed that his number one priority "has been and will always be" the team and keeping everyone together for as long as possible.

On the podcast, he further joked that if he had left the network, he would actually have to work. Certainly, Barkley will have options going forward as TNT still owns the rights for March Madness, NHL, and MLB playoffs. 

Furthermore, USA Today claimed that Barkley was almost certainly never going to leave. The star analyst is currently only in the second year of the 10-year, $210 million deal with TNT. The contract makes him one of the highest-paid sports analysts in broadcasting. The network's press release claimed that a long-term commitment would see Barkley "exclusively contribute to TNT Sports for many years to come."

The new deal for media rights has ended a nearly four-decade business relationship between the NBA and TNT, which sued the NBA just two days after it awarded the rights to the competitors. In its suit, TNT claims that it had the right to match Amazon's offer, but the NBA added special clauses, referred to as "poison pills," to kill its bid and provide an advantage to others.

Recently, the NBA made its final push to get the lawsuit dismissed by arguing that the purported match of the Amazon rights deal was just a counteroffer and TNT Sports had improperly sought to rewrite several key provisions of the agreement.