Let’s get one thing out of the way: Charles Barkley is not becoming an ESPN employee.
Just as ESPN licenses The Pat McAfee Show, it will soon license Inside the NBA — the crown jewel of basketball studio shows — starting next season. It’s a win-win after TNT Sports (Warner Bros. Discovery) lost NBA rights, allowing ESPN to air the best basketball show on television without building one from scratch.
But if ESPN thinks Barkley will fall in line and do the network rounds, it’s in for a rude awakening. He’s already made it clear he has no interest in being paraded through the ESPN “car wash” of studio talk shows, and he doesn’t miss a chance to take shots at Kendrick Perkins or the network that signs his checks. There’s no love lost between those two, but don’t expect them to avoid each other entirely.
Just don’t expect to see Barkley popping up on First Take anytime soon.
And it’s not like ESPN will fire him if he steps out of line. But then again, Barkley basically dared them to do so during a recent appearance on Outkick’s Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich — the same show where he declared that men don’t belong in women’s sports.
“I’m not going to change. I’m going to do what I want to do,” Barkley said. “Nobody’s going to tell me what to say, or what to do. I get upset. [ESPN] is like, ‘The Lakers are contenders.’ I’m like, ‘No, they’re not.’ They know they’re not contenders. Kendrick Perkins, who don’t know his ass from a hole in the wall, he’s like, ‘The Lakers are contenders. The Lakers are contenders.’ And I said, ‘They’re not contenders.’ And, clearly, if you lose in the first round, you aren’t a contender.
“But I’m not going to change my personality. Ain’t nobody — they can’t fire me. I make too much money to get fired. So, they can’t fire me. First of all, if they fire me, they got to pay me for seven years, and I’m going to quit way before then. But if they want to fire me, I would love for them to do that. The only decision we’ve been making is how long I’m going to work… I’m not worried about getting fired. And nobody at ESPN is going to tell me what to say or do. Period.”
Beyond the bravado and network politics, Barkley says the real frustration is the uncertainty.
“That’s one that’s been very interesting and frustrating for me; we actually have no idea how this is going to work,” Barkley told Dakich. “We have no idea how much we’re going to work. We don’t know who we’re going to work with. To be honest with you, that’s actually been one of most frustrating things, and one of the reasons I hesitate to sign off on a deal. We’ve been fighting behind closed doors. I’m like, ‘I’m not taking no job when I [don’t] know… No. 1, the most important thing, is how much I’m going to work. That’s been my biggest gripe, to be honest with you. Like, well, how much am I going to work? The notion that I’m going to work more as I get older, that’s just not going to happen.
“Like I say, I think I’m going to stick it out for two more years. They’re trying to talk me into three years. I’m like, ‘Right now, I’m gonna give y’all two more years; that’s the best I can do.’ Because my biggest concern, I’m not even worried about ESPN, or anybody like that. I’m worried about the people here at Turner. I want to make sure they got a job — that was my only concern, because this was supposed to be my last year. And I didn’t think we were stupid enough to lose the NBA contract. It would’ve been a smooth transition for me to walk away at the end of the year. The only reason I’m hanging around is to make sure the people I love and work with for the last 25 years got a job.”
There’s no other reason.
It has nothing to do with ESPN or TNT.
“I just want to make sure the people I work with got a job,” Barkley adds. “Like I say, I originally thought. I didn’t think the people I worked for here at Turner was so stupid they were going to lose the NBA. I was going to pass the torch to Vince Carter or Jamal Crawford — two amazing guys. So, I thought this was going to be it for me, to be honest with you. And when they screwed up and lost the NBA deal, I was like, ‘Oh, how do I keep these people employed?’ And they came up with this thing at ESPN, and now I’m just trying to decide either I’m going to stay here two years or three years.”
There’s no ulterior motive. No secret desire to reinvent himself at ESPN. No grand vision of extending his TV brand.
He’s daring ESPN to fire him, not begging them to feature him.
