24 years have passed since Charles Barkley retired from his run as an NBA superstar on the court, and fans were in danger of losing his unparalleled talents behind the scenes as well due to the league’s eventually shifting from TNT to NBC, Peacock, ESPN and Amazon. But despite his initial retirement announcement happening in mid-June, the Hall-of-Famer later walked back his comments in order to stick with the Turner company in a free agent capacity. And he apparently turned down a gobsmacking amount of money to do so.
Appearing on the Dan Le Batard Show podcast to talk about Team USA’s Olympics success in Men’s Basketball and other topics, Barkley addressed his decision to reverse his retirement, saying it wasn’t about him at all. As he put it:
The number-one thing for me is my people at Turner get to keep their jobs for at least another year. That’s all I was concerned with. . . .
Like many who have been continuously upset about the NBA’s decision to make changes for its network and streaming plans starting with the 2025 season, Charles Barkely has ripped the organization for reportedly not even entertaining TNT execs’ attempts to maintain a partnership that goes back all the way to 1989. (His harsh comments beforehand were great as well.) So it’s no surprise that a slew of other networks and companies attempted to sway him over to their side of the court once he voiced his desire to retire from Inside the NBA.
But it is surprising to learn he turned down a life-changing amount of money in order to stick with his longtime TV home. When asked, he offered this up as the total he waved off:
A minimum of $100 million. A minimum.
I can't even imagine saying no to that kind of offer, not that anyone is trying to get yours truly behind a desk to talk basketball. That said, Barkley was indeed moved to see just how much attention he commanded, and when asked if it felt good to have those offers coming in, the commentator said:
Yeah, 100%, it was a great feeling. And I want to thank all of those networks for reaching out to me. . . . It was really humbling and cool, to be honest with you. Even though they were throwing crazy numbers, I was like damn. But as long as I got my people safe at TNT man, I feel really good.
You can bet a lot of people out there would have jumped at the chance to take one of those other lucrative offers, but Charles Barkley is successful enough at this point that he could put everyone else's jobs and happiness ahead of his own. Plus, it's not as if he's not still getting paid to spend another year behind the desk on TNT, as he so humorously stated:
Like I say, they gonna pay me to go and talk about nothing, so I can’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I probably would’ve had to do an honest day’s work if I went to one of those other networks.
Get that honest day's work outta here. Sir Charles is royalty.
Could ESPN, NBC or Amazon pull off their own version of Inside the NBA? Charles Barkley certainly doesn’t think so. So be sure to keep watching throughout the 2024 TV season and beyond!
