It appears Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal will be coming back next season, only on a different network.
Inside the NBA, TNT’s popular studio show, will be licensed to ESPN and ABC starting next season, when parent company Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) was set to lose league broadcast rights, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Former league stars Barkley, O’Neal, Kenny Smith as well as host Ernie Johnson’s future had been uncertain, but now the quartet appears to be returning to the league for the foreseeable future.
According to the Journal, WBD also worked a separate deal with the NBA to settle its breach of contract lawsuit in order for the media company to continue to do business with the league.
This settlement will allow WBD to develop new shows with NBA content in the United States and abroad. Additionally, the settlement will give the company rights to a ‘significant amount of NBA content domestically and abroad,’ per the Journal.
This will also allow WBD to continue to run the NBA’s digital operations, including NBA TV, for the next several years.
Shaquille O’Neal (left), Ernie Johnson (center left), Kenny Smith (center right) and Charles Barkley (right) are seen during a broadcast from the 2023-24 NBA season
In exchange for the rights to ‘Inside the NBA’, ESPN reportedly agreed to sublicense Big 12 college football and basketball games to WBD – which can be aired on TNT and on the company’s MAX streaming service.
It’s not clear if ‘Inside’ would replace ESPN’s current NBA studio program, ‘NBA Countdown’.
ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for confirmation of these reports.
Fans rejoiced at the news – with many concerned that the show, which has won 19 Sports Emmy Awards, would go off the air once WBD’s rights deal with the NBA expired at the end of this season.
WBD lost out in a bidding war to keep their rights to the NBA over the past offseason – losing out as ESPN re-negotiated its deal and the league welcomed NBC and Amazon Prime Video as new rights-holders. This does not include TNT Sport in the UK, which acquired the rights to the NBA last season.
WBD announced plans in late-July to invoke a clause in its contract with the league, giving the company the right to match offers for future media rights – specifically trying to target the Amazon deal.
The NBA rejected WBD’s reported offer of $1.8billion per year, saying that the company was unable to fully match the terms of Amazon’s contract.
In response to being frozen out, WBD sued the league – arguing their billion-dollar offer matched the deal by Amazon.
But with today’s news, that lawsuit is now dropped – and the media company will continue to work with the league.
It’s not immediately clear if the show will still be broadcast from ‘Studio J’ in Atlanta, but if TNT is producing the broadcasts, it’s likely that it could still be there.
The other detail to be revealed is when the crew of Ernie, Kenny, Chuck, and Shaq would do their show – with the quartet currently broadcasting their show on Thursdays. ESPN currently has rights to air the NBA on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays.
It should also be asked if the ‘NBA on TNT Tuesday’ crew – featuring Shaq as well as Adam Lefkoe, Candace Parker, and Jamal Crawford – will also be airing on ESPN.
MORE TO COME…
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