Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley talk about the NBA’s uncertain future after talking about a $2.5 billion NBC deal

SHAQUILLE O’Neal and Charles Barkley opened up about the future of their fan-favorite show, Inside the NBA.

With TNT in danger of losing media rights to the NBA, Inside the NBA could come to an end after the 2024-25 season.

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NBC parent Comcast reportedly has a $2.5 billion a year offer on the table to steal the NBA rights from TNT.

Warner Bros. Discovery, TNT’s parent company, currently pays just $1.2 billion a year for its media rights.

With NBC clearly having the upper hand, Inside the NBA is in danger of ending next year.

However, Shaq doesn’t seem too worried about the possible split.

“I don’t know [about the show’s future]but I hope [Warner Bros. Discovery CEO] David Zaslav will take care of business, I’m sure he will,” Shaq said. Daily Mail.

“I think we’re in a great place right now.”

Shaq’s Inside the NBA co-star Barkley seemed less confident about the show’s future.

“We don’t know. I mean, it would be sad [if the show ended]. We don’t know,” he told the Daily Mail.

“I hope so [continue]. Not just for me, Kenny, Ernie and Shaq, but for the real people who work there, it sucks that it’s stressful right now.”

While Shaq may have been open-minded about the deal, journalist Bill Simmons reported on his podcast that the NBC deal was “done.”

“One of the funniest things is that we all pretended like the TV deal wasn’t done a week and a half ago,” Simmons said.

“I think it’s done. I think Warner [Bros. Discovery] I’ve lost.

“And I don’t know why we’re waiting until after the playoffs, maybe that’s how they have to do it.

“But it’s all over. NBC is understanding. I’m just telling you.”

Barkley and his team are currently on 10-year contracts they signed with NBC in 2022, but Barkley made sure to include an opt-out in his deal for this very situation.

“I covered my ass to be honest with you,” Barkley said.

“I just signed a 10-year contract two years ago, but one of the things I did was opt out in a couple of years because I wanted to protect myself when it came to this situation.”

Barkley hasn’t revealed whether his co-hosts have the same opt-out, but he is likely to leave TNT if NBC wins the NBA rights.

“I said, ‘If you guys lose the NBA, I want to make sure I can get out of here.’ So I’m actually in a great position,” Barkley said.

“We knew it would be Amazon and Apple, but we didn’t know NBC would come out of nowhere.

“But the only thing I did in particular in my contract was put an exclusion clause.

“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.”

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