Charles Barkley often is the hottest free agent to hit the market subsequent 12 months, if he hits the market.
As Warner Bros. Discovery wrangles with the NBA in courtroom, hoping to win again a bit of the league’s media rights for 2025, there’s already a line of suitors for Barkley, the corporate’s greatest star in sports activities.
ESPN’s chief of content material, Burke Magnus, stated Tuesday he could be thinking about bringing Barkley to the community if he have been obtainable. Requested at a Entrance Workplace Sports activities convention in New York if he may see a world with Barkley at ESPN, Magnus stated he may.
“Yeah,” Magnus stated on the “Tuned In” convention. “That will be an ideal world. … I might be mendacity if I stated we weren’t thinking about Charles. The complete business is .”
NBC chairman Mark Lazerus stated he would even have curiosity in Barkley. NBC will begin broadcasting the NBA subsequent season.
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Whether or not Barkley would have curiosity in ESPN or NBC is one other query. The Basketball Corridor of Famer, who has been a part of TNT’s iconic “Contained in the NBA” studio present since 2000, stated in August he would stay with TNT Sports activities even after it misplaced the NBA. Barkley is within the third 12 months of a 10-year, $210 million deal.
“I really like my TNT Sports activities household,” Barkley, 61, stated in an announcement in August. “My #1 precedence has been and at all times can be our individuals and retaining everybody collectively for so long as potential.
“We now have probably the most wonderful individuals, and they’re one of the best at what they do,” his assertion continued. “I’m trying ahead to persevering with to work with them each on the reveals we presently have and new ones we develop collectively sooner or later. That is the one place for me.”
In July, Disney, NBC and Amazon gained the bidding rights for the NBA’s subsequent media deal, which can begin with the 2025-26 season and final 11 years. The agreements with the three firms are price $77 billion in complete. WBD didn’t get a bit of the rights and sued the NBA to implement what it says are matching rights from the present contract.
That lawsuit is presently in New York State courtroom with a schedule that has put it heading in the right direction for trial in April.
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(Photograph: Cliff Hawkins / Getty Pictures for The Match)