Charles Barkley isn’t quite done covering the NBA this season.
On Saturday, Barkley and his Inside the NBA colleagues said goodbye as TNT signed off following Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals. After 35 years, TNT will no longer air NBA games, which are moving to NBC and Amazon’s Prime Video as part of the league’s 11-year, $76 billion deal.
But some of the goodbyes were a bit premature.
Not only will Inside the NBA return next season on ESPN, Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kenny Smith are jumping to NBA TV to cover the NBA Finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers.
The trio will be part of the rotation for a pre- and postgame studio show also featuring Hall of Famers Grant Hill and Isiah Thomas, WNBA legend Candace Parker, and former NBA champs Steve Smith, Brendan Haywood, and Channing Frye.
O’Neil, Smith, and Thomas will be on NBA TV on Thursday. Barkley will cover Games 3 and 4 alongside Parker and Hill.
The one Inside the NBAer who won’t be joining them is Ernie Johnson. Instead, NBA TV’s studio show will be hosted by Jared Greenberg in Oklahoma City and Chris Miles in Indianapolis.
With ESPN owning the NBA Finals TV rights, Barkley and company have been jumping to NBA TV to host a studio show for years.
Last year, Barkley made news on the network when he announced he would be retiring after this season. That’s obviously not happening — earlier this week he committed to hosting Inside the NBA on ESPN for two years and still has nine years remaining on the 10-year, $210 million deal he signed with TNT Sports last year.
The added spotlight on NBA TV comes amid questions about the network’s future. After the NBA Finals, TNT Sports will no longer oversee the network’s content — instead, that will move in-house, with the league overseeing production of a mix of studio shows and live basketball games.
Sources say no official decision has been made about its schedule or specific programming, but NBA TV is expected to expand its coverage of live programming to include WNBA and G League games, as well as games from international basketball leagues. It will also continue to broadcast local NBA games nationwide.
NBA TV is under the same pressure as other cable channels due to cord cutting, which has sliced the number of homes the network appears in by nearly half. In the early 2010s, NBA TV appeared in upward of 61 million homes, according to Nielsen numbers reported by Puck’s John Ourand. Today the network is in just 33.3 million homes.
“What is a virtual certainty is that any future version of NBA TV will play a far smaller role in the league’s television strategy,” wrote Sports Media Watch’s Jon Lewis. “For a network that has carried games — both regular season and postseason — for more than 22 years, the future is a noticeable step downward.”
The NFL Network and MLB Network are under the same pressure. That’s part of the reason the NFL has cut back on its NFL Network programming, laid off on-air personalities, and is working to sell its media operations to ESPN, though a deal has not been finalized.
Questions at ESPN as NBA Finals begin
Even as ESPN prepares to broadcast Game 1 of the NBA Finals Thursday on ABC, the network has its own unanswered questions.
Calling tonight’s game will be veteran play-by-play announcer Mike Breen alongside analysts Richard Jefferson and Doris Burke. It’s the third NBA Finals crew ESPN has turned to after having dumped Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson as part of companywide cutbacks in 2023.
Last year, it was supposed to be Breen and Burke alongside former Sixers coach Doc Rivers, who lasted about a month with ESPN before taking the Milwaukee Bucks coaching job.
ESPN turned to another former Sixer, JJ Redick, who called last year’s NBA Finals before leaving to coach LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers.
It looks like next year’s crew might be different, too. The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand reported ESPN intends to re-sign Jefferson, whose contract expires after this season. But it’s unclear if Jefferson or Burke will be back to call the finals as ESPN plans to “evaluate its entire roster,” Marchand reported.
Then there’s the question how ESPN will integrate Inside the NBA, even as stars Stephen A. Smith and Kendrick Perkins host NBA Countdown and SportsCenter host Scott Van Pelt mans postgame coverage.
Few decisions have been made, but ESPN has said it would turn to Barkley and company surrounding its ABC games after Jan. 1. The network also plans to roll out the fan favorites on opening week, Christmas Day, and during the NBA playoffs, with TNT continuing to produce the show.
“I don’t think they know the exact schedule,” Barkley said on The Dan Patrick Show earlier this week. “If they start trying to work me too much between ESPN and TNT, I’m just going to walk on home.”
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