The 2025 NCAA Tournament is headed to San Antonio for the Final Four on Saturday. But unfortunately for some sports fans in the city, a longstanding rival of the city, Charles Barkley, will be plastered all around the city in anticipation of the event on the front of Capital One’s promotional blimp.
Last year, Capital One, a corporate sponsor of the NCAA Tournament for years now, debuted a blimp with a blown-up picture of Charles Barkley on it for the Final Four in Arizona.
Over the weekend, images emerged that show the blimp with Barkley’s face on it, along with a separate blimp with Magic Johnson’s face on it, featured flying over San Antonio, which will seemingly be the case throughout the week in the lead-up to the pair of games at the Final Four.
Spotted in San Antonio already via Reddit – The Charles Barkley Blimp pic.twitter.com/qvn4OjiEjJ
— Sickos Committee (@SickosCommittee) March 31, 2025
Barkley’s insults know no bounds when it comes to the city of San Antonio, publicly ripping the residents of the city for over a decade for a multitude of reasons.
But in particular, Barkley has narrowed in at picking on the weight of the people who live in San Antonio, previously referring to the women in San Antonio as a “gold mine for Weight Watchers” among many other insults.
If you were curious as to just how much Barkley has talked about residents of San Antonio, here is an eight-minute compilation of jokes from Barkley about the city over the years, which doesn’t even fully cover everything he has said more recently.
People around San Antonio are already beginning to see the blip in the sky, which naturally hasn’t been overly well received, given all of the comments about the city from Barkley in the past.
this is apparently flying over san antonio for the final four and i am losing it
— Bill DiFilippo (@billdifilippo.bsky.social) March 31, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Maybe Barkley will attempt to get back in the good graces of San Antonio sports fans during his studio coverage of the Final Four for CBS. But based on his recent history, this likely won’t end up being the case.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.