Charles Barkley: The NBA has ‘sh*t on the fans’

The NBA might pretend to care about its fans, but Charles Barkley won’t let them get away with the façade.

Barkley recently spoke to reporters ahead of the 10th annual Bruce, Barkley, & Basketball Golf Classic, a fundraising event he hosts with now-former Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl. During the interview, Barkley was asked about Inside the NBA, which is airing on ESPN this season. And while Barkley played nice regarding their ESPN partnership, he made sure to note how much he believes the NBA’s new media deals are a disservice to the fans.

“One of my biggest concerns is we have sh*t on the fans so much moving the games to NBC and Amazon,” Barkley ranted. “Fans are gonna have a hard time finding the games because we’re all gonna be on different nights now. But they just took the most money, they didn’t care about the fans, which it is what it is.”

For decades, NBA fans knew they could tune in to TNT during the season to catch Inside the NBA and a slate of games. The consistency made it easy for fans, but that goes away this season with NBC and Amazon Prime Video replacing TNT as a media partner for the NBA.

Barkley is right, the NBA doesn’t care about the fans, it cares about money. And an 11-year $77 billion deal with ESPN, Amazon and NBC gave the NBA the most money. But it’s also getting more exposure.

This season, the NBA has 75 more national games than last. And when the NFL season ends, the NBA will be able to tout having a national game every night of the week between ESPN, NBC, and Prime Video. Yes, the NBA will have to work to promote where the games are airing every night. And fans might have to work a little harder to know which platform has a game on any given night.

But this isn’t the NHL putting games on Versus. We’re talking about pretty large, well-known platforms in ESPN, NBC, and Prime Video. Platforms most sports fans are used to using by now. The NBA on TNT will be missed, but basketball fans should be just fine.