Basketball fans won’t be able to watch Inside the NBA much longer, but they might be able to watch the show live this season.
The final season of Inside the NBA debuted Tuesday night, amid the league preparing to enter a new wave of media deals with Amazon, ESPN, and NBC next year. With TNT getting ready to lose its NBA rights after a 35-year partnership, the best studio show in sports will undoubtedly have a different feel to it this season.
Charles Barkley joined SiriusXM’s Adam Schein this week on his Rise and Schein podcast to preview the NBA season, where the basketball Hall-of-Fame also spoke about this being Inside the NBA’s final season on TNT. And for their swan song, Barkley says the show plans on putting a greater emphasis on celebrating the fans.
“We’re just gonna try to have fun, “Barkley told Schein. “Number one, it sucks. It really sucks. It’s gonna be the end of it. And we’re just gonna try to make it as fun as possible for the fans because they’re the reason the show is popular…I think we’re gonna go on the road and celebrate the fans. I think we plan on going on the road like once a month. Because the fans are the ones who made the show popular. And it just really sucks.”
Barkley, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, and Shaquille O’Neal tipped off the 2024 NBA season live from Boston’s City Hall Plaza. And while it’s not unheard of for Inside the NBA to take the show on the road, it certainly hasn’t been a monthly occurrence throughout their tenure on TNT.
“Everybody is talking about different networks and things like that, that doesn’t matter,” Barkley continued. “It won’t be the same, cause Ernie’s not going to another network. I have no idea what myself, Kenny and Shaq are gonna do. But it won’t be the same no matter what. And we’re just gonna try to make it fun for the fans. We’re gonna go on the road, like I said, once a month.”
With the future of Inside the NBA in flux, why not consider turning the studio show into a permanent roadshow? Johnson doesn’t want to leave TNT, Barkley doesn’t want to join a new network, and Shaq and Kenny Smith have largely avoided addressing their media futures. Keeping the show together and just moving it to another network seems increasingly improbable. But what’s stopping them from doing live shows?
They can each work at different networks during the NBA season and still reunite a few times a year for live performances independent of their media contracts. Local radio shows and podcasts can pack small venues with fans for live shows. Isn’t it reasonable to assume Inside the NBA could sell 5,000 tickets or more four times a year while selling merch and cashing in on social media clips that fans will be clamoring for?
For this season, NBA fans will have the benefit of enjoying free monthly Inside the NBA roadshows. And maybe the frequent live performances will leave Barkley, Johnson, Shaq, Smith, and the fans wanting more.