Charles Barkley will be the hottest free agent to hit the market subsequent yr, if he hits the market.
As Warner Bros. Discovery wrangles with the NBA in court docket, hoping to win again a bit of the league’s media rights for 2025, there may be already a line of suitors for Barkley, the corporate’s largest star in sports activities.
ESPN’s chief of content material, Burke Magnus, stated Tuesday he could be desirous about bringing Barkley to the community if he had been out there. Requested at a Entrance Workplace Sports activities convention in New York if he might see a world with Barkley at ESPN, Magnus stated he might.
“Yeah,” Magnus stated on the “Tuned In” convention. “That will be an ideal world. … I’d be mendacity if I stated we weren’t desirous about Charles. The whole trade 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 yr of a 10-year, $210 million deal.
“I like my TNT Sports activities household,” Barkley, 61, stated in a press release in August. “My #1 precedence has been and at all times will likely be our individuals and protecting everybody collectively for so long as doable.
“Now we have essentially the most wonderful individuals, and they’re one of the best at what they do,” his assertion continued. “I’m wanting ahead to persevering with to work with them each on the exhibits we at the moment have and new ones we develop collectively sooner or later. That is the one place for me.”
In July, Disney, NBC and Amazon received 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 corporations are value $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 at the moment in New York State court docket with a schedule that has put it heading in the right direction for trial in April.
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(Photograph: Cliff Hawkins / Getty Photos for The Match)