Charles Barkley insisted he can talk to whoever he wants despite pressure from colleagues to get permission from Warner Bros. Discovery honchos before speaking to the press about the possibility of TNT losing the NBA.
Barkley has long been a key figure on TNT’s iconic "Inside the NBA," but Warner Bros. Discovery has not locked in rights to broadcast NBA games on the network after next season when the current contract expires.
New York Times reporter Tania Ganguli caught up with the "Inside the NBA" crew at the Western Conference finals in Minneapolis. She wrote that security and public relations officials attempted to "prevent [Barkley] from doing an interview," but the outspoken host wouldn’t keep quiet even as co-host Kenny Smith "voiced his irritation" about it.
"Hey, man, I can talk to who I want to," Barkley said to Smith inside a crowded elevator, according to Ganguli, who noted that Barkley also used an expletive.
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Smith then told Barkley he should at least speak to the Times reporter outside the elevator.
"Don’t worry about him," Barkley told Ganguli, according to her piece.
The Times reporter said Smith urged her to "clear it through Turner" and "do it the right way" instead of letting Barkley speak out against the wishes of his corporate bosses.
Barkley told the Times he wanted to speak out because the possibility of TNT losing the NBA will impact "people’s lives," according to Ganguli.
"We probably have 100 people who do work on the show. So they’re, like, real people. I’ve seen their kids born, graduate high school, graduate college," Barkley said.
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The wildly popular "Inside the NBA" has been on TNT since 1989, and host Ernie Johnson’s banter with analysts Shaquille O’Neal, Barkley and Smith has been must-see TV for sports fans for years. It is widely thought that Disney, NBC and Amazon will outbid TNT.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav famously said in 2022 the company doesn’t "have to have the NBA" in the wake of the merger that combined Discovery Inc. and WarnerMedia. The line was presumably some sort of negotiating tactic, but it clearly stuck with Barkley.
"When we merged, that’s the first thing our boss said: ‘We don’t need the N.B.A.,’" Barkley told the Times.
"Well, he don’t need it," he continued. "But the rest of the people, me, Kenny, Shaq and Ernie and the people who work there, we need it."
Warner Bros. Discovery did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
While Barkley has been outspoken, his colleagues aren’t willing to speak out of school.
O’Neal told the Times that the crew "aren’t allowed to talk ever since Chuck’s outburst," according to Ganguli, who noted that he may have been joking because "a public relations official with TNT said later that the cast had not been asked not to speak."
Johnson reprimanded the Times reporter for approaching him for an interview without permission, Ganguli wrote.
Barkley, who recently co-hosted a short-lived CNN program alongside Gayle King in addition to his "Inside the NBA" duties, has also taken shots at Warner Bros. Discovery management over the network’s ratings.
"We had new people take over, and we're in disarray," Barkley said last week on "The Mike Missanelli Podcast."
