The NBA’s new media rights agreement initially had people worried that the beloved cast of Inside the NBA would be splitting up once the show gets broadcast on ESPN. On Thursday, the sports world found out what will become Shaquille O’Neal’s relationship with the company.
Shaq, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith are as much a fixture as the starting of an exhibition game on NBA gamedays. Joining with Ernie Johnson, those four have given fans more fun before, during and after games than most any other group of sports analysts in the world.
Inside the NBA is a great asset to being able to have all four of them in a group recording. And it appears that they agree.
According to CBNC’s Alexander Sherman, Shaq is reportedly signing a five-year contract with TNT Sports to stay on the show even after it gets “leased” to ESPN in the near future. Smith will also be coming back to the organization on a long-term contract. Terms of the deal are not yet available.
However, O’Neal and Smith are returning, Rest assured NBA fans. [He/she] is at the brink of renewing his/her contract with TNT Sports, CNBC has learned. O’Neal will sign a five-year contract. Smith will ink a multiyear deal, as well. A Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson declined to comment,” Sherman wrote.
Inside the NBA has been on TNT since the late 1980s and Ernie Johnson has been part of the show since its second season, a cameraperson through its second season and on through to the present day.
Smith joined the show in 1998 after retiring from the NBA. Two years later he was there, in place of the desk, by Barkley on his own Hall of Fame basketball way through.
The core turned to four in the 2011-12 season when Shaquille O’Neal joined the desk and they’ve been an inseparable combination ever since.
Of the four, Barkley seems the most likely to go off and do his own thing, and has threatened that very thing on a few occasions. However, for now, it seems that TNT Sports is doing its best to preserve their premium NBA programme.
