Barkley jokes he's put himself on Linkedin as 'Inside the NBA' faces uncertainty (2024)

Charles Barkley admitted that he has put himself on Linkedin amid uncertainty over his role (Image: Getty)

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With the latter's parent firm Comcast prepared to pay $2.5 billion a year to usurp TNT as rights holders, as per The Wall Street Journal, it remains to be seen whether the 2024-25 season will be the last on the network. Currently, TNT is paying less than half of the figure tabled by Comcast and has a deal in place to the tune of $1.2 billion per annum.

Previously, David Zaslav, the CEO of TNT parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, has confessed that the firm does not "have to have the NBA". That said, the current holders do have the option to match the offer made by NBC's parent company in order to keep the rights.

Either way, all of this leaves figures such as Barkley in limbo, especially as his current deal with TNT includes an escape clause if the company loses the NBA broadcasting rights. Now, during an appearance on ESPN on ABC for the Stanley Cup Finals, he addressed his future, quipping:"Listen, I wish I had a job next year. I'm on LinkedIn. I put on my resume, they are like 'You never had a real job'. I said that's not my fault."

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Charles Barkley appears to be keeping calm about his current contract situation (Image: Getty)

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Previously on ESPN Cleveland’sThe Really Big Show, Barkley admitted he is in a "really great position" in terms of his current opt-out agreement with TNT He revealed: "I just signed a 10-year deal two years ago but one of the things I did was I put an opt-out after a couple years because I wanted to cover my ass when it comes to this situation."

"We knew it was going to be Amazon and Apple, but we didn’t know NBC was going to come out of the woodwork," he continued. "Listen, I love TNT, they’ve been great to me. … I wanted to make sure that if we lost the NBA in two years, I could be a free agent."

His tongue-in-cheek remark about his Linkedin account appeared to go down well with viewers who were left amused by his transparent approach to the current situation. One fan took to Twitter/X to say: "He’s been working out that one joke every where he goes," while another added: "I wish @ABC would replace their entire table with @NBAonTNT cast and I then I might actually watch at halftime and before and after the game."

Irrespective of the state of play when it comes to his agreement with TNT, the 60-year-old has been open in the past about maybe not seeing out the entirety of his decade-long deal with the firm. He said on the SI Media With Jimmy Traina podcast, he revealed: "They wanted me to let people know I wasn’t leaving, like, next week.

"There’s no chance in hell I’m gonna be working when I’m 70. Zero. But they said, 'Hey let’s just make people think you’re gonna hang around'. I’ll be honest with you. The only thing that keeps me up at night is trying to figure out when’s the best time to walk away. Because the one thing you don’t want to do is stay too long. What’s interesting is, I can’t believe I’ve been doing this [...] 23 years. That’s what’s crazy. I mean, that’s a long time. So what really keeps me up at night, to be flat-out honest with you, and I don't know the right or the wrong answer, is when’s the best time to walk away?"

Barkley added: "Do you wanna walk away while the show is still successful or do you want them to go like, ‘Hey, man, we're really sick of seeing y’all face after all these years.’ So that’s really the only thing that keeps me up late at night, trying to figure out what’s the best way to leave."

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