Charles Barkley takes high road revealing $100 million loss due to his TNT comeback

Back in 2022, Charles Barkley signed a 10-year contract extension with TNT worth a reported $200 million. While the deal was a massive one for the NBA legend, serious questions were raised about his future with the network this summer amid the NBA's media rights negotiations.

TNT's contract gave its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, the right to match Amazon's deal, however, at one point, with the future of Inside the NBA hanging in the balance, Barkley declared that he was retiring.

While it had been long speculated that TNT would be losing out on the right to broadcast NBA games after the upcoming 2024-25 NBA season, Charles Barkley had also stated that he could be interested in hearing offers from ESPN and Amazon that would bring him over to one of the two media giants.

Despite that, the Hall of Famer came to an agreement with TNT regarding his future. Ultimately, despite TNT losing out on NBA broadcasting rights after the 2024-25 season, the two-time Olympic gold medalist would remain with the network.

While speaking on the Dan Le Batard Show on Tuesday, Charles Barkley spoke about his future with the network, explaining that he will miss out on a minimum of $100 million over the next ten years by staying with the network:

"A minimum of 100 million. A minimum, man. ... I want to thank all those networks for reaching out to me. It was really humbling and cool. I wasn't even thinking. Like I said, Dan, 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."

Charles Barkley explains why other networks struggle to replicate Inside the NBA ahead of the show's final season

At the time it looked as though TNT was going to miss out on a chance to get in on the NBA's new media rights deal, theories began to fly suggesting that the award-winning group of Charles Barkley, Ernie Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal and Kenny 'The Jet' Smith could wind up being paid a hefty amount to bring Inside the NBA to another network.

Fans were immediately suspicious of the news given that Ernie Johnson is considered to be a 'TNT lifer' however, fans remained hopeful. At the same time, other fans began to speculate that NBC, or Amazon could work to put together their own version of Inside the NBA.

While speaking on an episode of NBA star Paul George's Podcast P show on YouTube, Charles Barkley explained why other networks haven't been able to replicate the success of Inside the NBA:

"You know, ESPN – which I love – they never give anybody to get any chemistry. They’re all just kinda throwing stuff at the wall like, ‘Let’s put this group together.’ And they’ll do that for like six months to a year, and then they’re like, ‘It didn’t work.’ Well, you didn’t give it a chance to work."

As the NBA community looks ahead at a world without Inside the NBA, the expectation is that ESPN, NBC, or Amazon will look to put together a group in hopes of filling some of the gap left by Inside the NBA's departure.