Will NBA's funny money bring back its funny men?

A $76 billion, 11 year contract, due to start in 2025-26, locks out Turner, and Inside The NBA, at least for the time being.

The dominant reaction to the NBA’s TV contract negotiations is almost unanimous: “What happens to Shaq, Chuck and Kenny?”

Let’s not worry about Luka, The Joker, Giannis, KD, LeBron and Embiid. They’ll take care of themselves. Our brains have become so dependent on, and so captured by, the games that we don’t really know what to think when they’re over. Until somebody important appears to confirm or contradict us, we’re just sort of hanging.

And the ability of Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and host Ernie Johnson to keep us from flipping away from TNT on Thursday nights is critical, because they might make us laugh. Especially when they make each other laugh. The sight of Shaq, the world’s largest influencer, dissolving into 340 or so pounds of merriment over something Chuck either meant or didn’t mean to say, is the highlight of Inside The NBA, no matter what Anthony Edwards does.

When the TV negotiations began moving in earnest, and the Turner networks were being left behind, Inside The NBA became a jeopardized entitlement. Johnson made it clear he was staying with Turner regardless. Barkley said he wasn’t going anywhere unless Ernie did, then castigated the Turner negotiators as “clowns” for getting left behind, then announced his retirement from TV during the playoffs, although Barkley “retired” from his Hall of Fame playing career a half-dozen times before injuries left him no choice.

It got ugly when journalists caught up with Barkley and sought more comments, which is like asking Old Faithful to spout off. Smith tried to keep Barkley from cooperating with one reporter, and Barkley told Smith he would talk to whoever the hell he wanted to talk to. Johnson tartly reminded one journalist of the ground rules: Go through the Turner PR machine before you call.

On Wednesday, news of the new deal began to seep. It is, even for these times, mind-bending. For $74 billion, the NBA will assign 11 years of TV rights to ESPN/ABC, NBC, and Amazon Prime Video in a contract that begins in 2025-26. Turner was left with its face pressed against the window, but it can also walk through the door if it chooses to match any part of the deal. It would have five days to do that, and it would be easiest, presumably, to challenge the Amazon segment.

Or The Inside crew could produce and package the show themselves and sell it. That sounds nice on paper, but the audience is picky these days, and it has become accustomed to the crew commenting on the action right after it happens on the same outlet. The other factor is that Turner owns NBA TV, so it’s conceivable that Inside The NBA could show up there on certain game nights. Still, it would require that viewers break habits.

If the audience cared about what the players thought about life in general, it would have flocked to CNN’s “King Charles,” an interview show featuring Barkley and Gayle King. It didn’t. The show opened late last November and closed in mid-April.

Inside The NBA actually started in 1990, but it didn’t become recognizable until Barkley showed up in 2000. He and Smith had a rotating partner until O’Neal plopped down in the seat next to Johnson. That gave the show much more heft and a bit of menace, because Barkley has a way of pushing Shaq’s buttons, leaving the big man to cite Barkley’s ringless fingers. That gets old, as does Shaq’s grievance whenever Johnson gets Barkley’s and Smith’s opinions first.

Shaq’s heated analysis of the most economic way to fill a gas tank is a surefire crackup. His narration of Shaqtin’ A Fool is another winner, although it seemed a little shopworn this season. So did the panel’s insistence that Embiid, in particular, should score 70 points every game and avoid taking 3-pointers, even though Embiid’s shooting is a major ingredient. Barkley and Shaq also demand total and unrelenting dominance from Anthony Davis. Those of a certain age remember when the panelists had off nights, too.

But what does it say about the NBA’s product when three Old Guys behind a desk wield such influence?

Ordinarily it would say a lot, but the gigantic new contract numbers contradict that. People in suits sense a demand for NBA action, somewhere out there. NBC will piggy-back NBA games on top of Sunday Night Football, and Amazon will do the same after its Thursday Night broadcasts. ESPN/ABC will do one conference final and then the NBA Finals each year. NBC and Amazon will alternate the other conference final, which accelerates the trend of streaming live events. A Super Bowl on Netflix is a distinct possibility in your lifetime. The league also tossed the In Season Tournament bone to Amazon.

There’s a certain nostalgia about the NBA on NBC, its home during the Jordan days, and the familiar “Roundball Rock” theme song, which Fox Sports stole for its college broadcasts. There’s also talk that Mike Tirico and Noah Eagle will handle play-by-play for NBC, and Ian Eagle, Noah’s dad and the only voice who can rival the impeccable Mike Breen, will be Amazon’s man. No word on where Turner voices like Kevin Harlan, Reggie Miller or Stan Van Gundy will take their talents.

The mammoth deal also gives the lie to TV ratings. For the past two years, ABC’s games in the regular season have averaged a 1.4. In 1995, NBC’s games drew a 5.2, and Jordan didn’t rejoin the league that year until the spring. Finals ratings have never bounced back from the pandemic. Boston-Dallas averaged 5.8 in 2024, down 0.3 from 2023 (Denver-Miami) and way down from the 11.6, 11.4 and 11.3 that Golden State and Cleveland drew from 2015 through 2017. Then the bloodthirsty NFL went after the NBA’s sole possession of Christmas Day and began scheduling games then. Suddenly the NBA lost nearly a third of that audience.

On paper, the ratings should improve this coming season, with the Knicks becoming an accepted challenger and with the Celtics trying to become dynastic. Then there’s the Cooper Flagg effect in 2025-26, when the prodigy from Maine joins the league and rewards one of perhaps a half-dozen active tankers. But it’s obvious that the foreign dominance of the game, as esthetically pleasing as it is, has not helped its mass appeal. The downturn in college basketball has removed a chance to showcase the coming talent.

The good news is that none of that matters to the folks who are printing the money, and the coming outlay will pump up the salary cap and, possibly, create the first $100-million-a-year player someday. By then Draymond Green might be sitting there between Ernie and Kenny. Or, very possibly, JJ Redick. Or maybe Barkley will be there until Social Security kicks in, or until San Antonio gets good again, and Barkley can resurrect his observations about female girth in the Alamo City, where “Victoria is still a secret.”

If so many bad basketball players can make a living in Charlotte, Washington and Detroit, how can three ace comedians be in search of a show? In the endless maze of channels, they’ll find something. Without them, we’ll have to settle for the game, somehow.

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