The futures of the NBA on TNT talent like Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny Smith and Ernie Johnson have been in question with the league signing a new TV deal. National games will now be on ESPN, NBC and Amazon with Turner Sports losing out on the rights.
As things currently stand though, NBA on TNT will be licensed to ESPN so that the ‘Inside the NBA’ crew can stay together and keep entertaining fans before and after games.
With that, Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports is reporting that O’Neal has signed a long-term contract extension with the company:
Shaquille O’Neal has an agreement in place for an enormous long-term deal with TNT Sports that will pay him over $15 million per year, Front Office Sports has learned.
The deal is good news for TNT as it licenses the Emmy Award–winning Inside the NBA to ESPN next season in exchange for a package of Big 12 college football/basketball games.
Whether O’Neal would return for the show’s first season on ESPN was one of the biggest questions hanging over the cast. The four-time NBA champion joined Inside the NBA in 2011 after a 19-year playing career. With his portfolio of endorsements, the 52-year-old is believed to have a net worth around $500 million.
The show’s megastar, Charles Barkley, makes $21 million per year via a 10-year $210 million contract extension signed in 2022. Barkley is also sticking with TNT despite offers from NBC, Amazon and ESPN.
Shaq had previously spoken about how he had not signed a deal yet and his future up in the air, so it’s good to see that it eventually got done. It appears Kenny Smith is the last of the ‘Inside the NBA’ crew that needs to sign an extension to keep the gang together after this season.
Shaquille O’Neal shares theory on why NBA ratings are down
All of these changes coming to the NBA TV rights come with the context that ratings have steadily been dropping. Shaquille O’Neal recently shared his theory on why that is.
“I have a theory that it’s down because we’re looking at the same thing. Everybody’s running in the same place with the damn top of the key dribble handoff. I was talking to a coach yesterday who said they want to shoot 50 3s. But you know they were trying to contemplate if I could play in this era and it’s like, ‘Yo Shaq, you know would shoot 50 3s.’ And I was like how much you want to make? You want to make about 10 or 15 of them. Well that’s not going to help you win, but I think everybody is looking at the same thing. And Steph Curry and those guys messed it up. Like, I don’t mind Golden State back in the day shooting 3s, but every team got a 3-point shooter. So why everybody has the same strategy? I think viewership will continue to go down unless we switch things back up.”
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