Despite so many suggesting that TNT and parent company Warner Bros. Discovery’s time with the NBA has run out, league commissioner Adam Silver isn’t ready to name a winner just yet. According to him, the media rights still have no owner, as negotiations continue.
While the NBA and TNT have been partners for over two decades, so much would change if these multiple reports result to be true. These sources assure that a new media deal could include Disney/ESPN, NBC and Amazon, and would consequently leave Warner Bros. Discovery out of the picture.
Despite the league not making an announcement about the future home for years to come, Silver guaranteed that the negotiations for the broadcast packages continue, and no one know what will happen.
During his decade as Commissioner, Adam Silver has more than doubled the NBA’s revenue to $12b from $4.8b. No matter how the league’s media rights negotiations pan out, the savvy Commissioner is already the winner. https://t.co/4aC2OqNlkJ
— Michael McCarthy (@MMcCarthyREV) May 26, 2024
“Who knows,” the NBA commissioner told the press as he was asked just before a dinner at the White House. “We’re all still talking. Who knows how it’s gonna work out.”
Silver also said that he knows for a fact that whatever happens in the end, at least two of the show’s stars will continue to cover the league for years to come. “We’re never gonna lose Charles and Kenny,” he assured. “They’re always going to be covering the NBA. . . . I can’t imagine those guys [on ‘Inside the NBA’] won’t be performing and announcing together in the future, and we all love them.”
Despite the commissioner’s claim, Barkley admitted recently that the entire crew is “scared to death” about the future. Chuck revealed that the entire staff is still in the dark, which has created a strange atmosphere around the show during these NBA playoffs.
“We have zero idea what’s going to happen,” the Suns icon expressed last week in Chicago. “We might lose it … it is flat-out brutal, everybody’s scared to death.”
Barkley Calls TNT Leaders ‘Clowns’ And Says He Could Take Over Inside The NBA Production
Charles Barkley is frustrated over the fact that TNT is on the verge of losing their rights to broadcast the NBA, as there is a possibility that Inside the NBA might also disappear. The last reports suggest that the league is finalizing their new media rights deal with Disney/ESPN, Amazon and NBA.
If things continue down this road, it would leave TNT without basketball actions for the first time in over two decades. Even though parent company Warner Bros. Discovery have the money to match NBC’s package, they seem unlikely to proceed in this direction.
Chuck recently appeared on The Dan Patrick Show and spit out everything he had stored in his mind about this issue. The Hall of Famer sounded off on the TNT leadership that is letting the league walk out the door. “Morale sucks, plain and simple. I just feel so bad for the people I work with, Dan. These people have families and I just really feel bad for them right now.
“These people I work with, they screwed this thing up, clearly, and we don’t have zero idea what’s gonna happen. I don’t feel good. I’m not gonna lie, especially when they came out yesterday and said we bought college football. I was like, well, damn, they could have used that money to buy the NBA,” he said on air.
