There are about 20 minutes left until TNT Sports’ “Inside the NBA” halftime show when Charles Barkley strolls onto the set, where his esteemed co-host Ernie Johnson is already taking notes on a handful of games in progress.
“Who are these people?” The Basketball Hall of Famer asks the staff in his famous Alabama style, pointing to a group of intruders in Atlanta’s famous Studio J.
The answer, Barkley learned, is a small group of reporters with British and Irish readers, all of whom TNT Sports wants to turn into NBA fans. And although he is not informed about the journalists’ exact plot perspectives, he reliably assumes that they are writing about him and what is probably the most popular show in sports entertainment. While he doesn’t intend to give a full interview, Sir Charles offers a single, sarcastic quote as he slowly makes his way to his usual spot on stage left: “It’s hard work!”
It doesn’t take long before co-hosts Kenny “The Jet” Smith and Shaquille O’Neal arrive at the cavernous studio, where a steel-reinforced basket has been set up in case the seven-foot-tall, 300-pound Shaq decides to use it decides Throw a two-handed slam. It wasn’t until Tuesday night, with just minutes left before the show, that O’Neal lines up for a baseline jumper – the kind of shot he passed up as a pro, but Smith bets $100 that he’ll miss, so there’s that big guy opens fire, casually leaving a 15-foot rifle empty.
“Shaq owes me more than that,” Smith said later when Mail Sport asked if he would pay O’Neal $100. “Do you know how many bets he didn’t pay? And how many shots have I probably fired over the years that he never paid me for?’
All of this takes place off-air, but for Inside The NBA fans, it’s a familiar example of the show’s DNA: What starts with basketball (in this case, O’Neal’s baseline jumper) turns into an entertaining debate between friends, colleagues, and competitors.
Shaquille O’Neal (left), Ernie Johnson (center left), Kenny Smith (center right) and Charles Barkley (right) on Tuesday’s show
Shaquille O’Neal, 51, and Ernie Johnson, 67, have been working together on Inside The NBA for around a dozen seasons
Smith (left) says Barkley (right) is responsible for “99 percent” of the controversy on TNT Sports’ “Inside The NBA.”
Such an exchange may be less familiar to British and Irish audiences, but TNT Sports’ parent company Warner Bros. Discovery is looking to change that this season after securing the NBA’s regional media rights.
As a result, TNT Sports will broadcast nine games per week in the British Isles during the regular season and the first two rounds of the NBA Playoffs. In addition, the networks will broadcast five games on Christmas, three matches on Martin Luther King Day (January 15) and the knockout round of the league’s first tournament of the season, not to mention the final two rounds of the NBA postseason, which ends with the finals in early June.
But simply sending a few basketball games across the North Atlantic in the hopes of attracting an audience isn’t practical.
Two TNT Sports executives are bringing the NBA to the UK: Craig Barry (left) from Atlanta and Scott Young from London
First of all, there’s the awkward time zone difference, not to mention the reluctance of younger viewers to watch entire games from start to finish.
Therefore, in addition to the live broadcasts of the game before dawn, daytime shows with highlights and commentary were designed to let fans know what they missed in their sleep.
Above all, the content needs to feel authentic, whether it’s being consumed live on TV or someone is scrolling through social media the next day.
“This generation that really enjoys watching the NBA loves the style of production that comes from the U.S.,” said Scott Young, senior vice president of content and production at Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe. “They love the US narrative.”
That’s where Inside The NBA comes in: an American cultural touchstone that has something to offer both hardcore and casual basketball fans.
“I think we really love this intersection of sports and culture,” said Craig Barry, executive vice president and chief content officer of Warner Bros. Discovery Sports. “We understand our obligation to the hardcore fan, but we also understand our equal obligation to the casual fan, right?” And that’s kind of a differentiation in the way we create our content. [We] Approach it in this really honest, uncompromising, authentic way.’
Combining basketball and pop culture has been the approach of Johnson, Barkley and Smith for about two decades, including the last twelve years with O’Neal.
Yes, it’s a sports broadcast, but Inside The NBA aims to attract more than just sports fans.
“I think we’re the number one entertainment show,” said Smith, a former NBA guard. “Not sports – entertainment.” Because that’s just how it is, we’re talking about basketball. That’s the topic we talk about, but we entertain and that’s what sets it apart. And Shaq is an entertainer; Charles is definitely an entertainer; I guess I’m an aspiring entertainer. and Ernie entertains.
“The biggest compliment we’ve ever received is that I hear this a lot now: ‘I’m not watching the game.’ ‘I’m watching you.’
Kenny Smith illustrates a point on the giant TNT Sports replay screen that dominates the cavernous studio in Atlanta
Smith says the reach of the show is so remarkable that he has received fan feedback while traveling as far away as Abu Dhabi.
“And not just one person, it’s the frequency,” added Smith, who says he is far better known for his on-air work than for winning two titles with the Houston Rockets in the mid-1990s.
Even in the United States, where the NFL sits at the top of the national sports hierarchy, Inside The NBA still stands out from competing programs because of its cultural significance.
“It’s my favorite show,” retired NFL star Champ Bailey told Mail Sport from Studio J, where he has made several pilgrimages.
TNT Sports has a policy against releasing viewership data, Mail Sport was told, but according to USTVDB.com, broadcasts are typically watched by 500,000 to 1.3 million US viewers.
Former NFL star Champ Bailey (pictured in Studio J) told Mail Sport that Inside The NBA is actually his “favorite show”.
However, this is an imperfect measure because it does not take into account the show’s impact across all media. “Inside The NBA” has been the subject of everything from “Saturday Night Live” sketches to serious national news reports and just about everything in between.
Take O’Neal’s heartfelt reaction to the death of his former teammate Kobe Bryant in 2020 or the time Barkley lost an on-air bet and was forced to kiss Smith’s “ass” (a pet donkey): Both moments have been immortalized on the Internet, albeit for very different reasons.
“Because let’s face it, the business of sports is about moments,” Barry said.
One such moment occurred in 2015 when O’Neal stumbled while trying to get Smith onto the giant replay screen that dominates the background of Studio J.
When it’s time for Smith to watch replays for the audience, he usually jogs from the desk back to the giant screen, occasionally overtaking Barkley or O’Neal in a childish duel of NBA retirees.
Only this time, O’Neal’s blimp-sized feet became entangled in some electrical wires, causing him to fall to the ground and his three co-hosts to be in hysterics.
But the moment wasn’t just funny. For Barry it was a revelation.
“That door opened for us and we realized it wasn’t Shaq, it was us,” said Barry, who admittedly made a mistake when he originally cast O’Neal as a serious counterweight to Barkley’s comedic presence.
As Barry explained, the producers of Inside The NBA realized they were “not producing it properly.”
Instead of allowing Shaq to be Shaq, they suppressed his greatest asset: a physical presence that weighs nearly 400 pounds.
“He fell and the set shook,” Barry said. “It kind of woke us all up.”
And like everything with Barry and Inside The NBA, this wasn’t pre-planned in a production meeting.
In fact, O’Neal, Barkley and Smith never attend production meetings – and Barry believes this gives the show an authenticity that he hopes will appeal to British and Irish audiences.
“Charles, Kenny and Shaq are not invited,” Barry said of production meetings. “At least not that they would come.”
Ernie Johnson and Kenny Smith laugh in Atlanta during halftime of the Thunder-Spurs game in Oklahoma City on Tuesday
A look inside the control room at TNT Sports, where Inside the NBA and a number of other sports programs are produced
“It’s a real conversation,” Smith said. “It’s real dialogue.” It’s not rehearsed… So you see that when Shaq is mad at Chuck, he’s really mad. He didn’t have a section to practice it and get mad and then calm down and do the section. No, he is crazy at this moment.’
Johnson, the son and namesake of a former Milwaukee Braves pitcher, attends every production meeting. And when he’s not there, he spends most of his time hunched over in his office, where the media veteran busily prepares notes for all of the NBA action on a given evening.
Barkley, O’Neal and Smith, on the other hand, spend their off-air moments watching games from their custom-made chairs, which are reportedly so huge that they had to be dismantled before they fit into their private viewing room.
Of course, the image of Barkley, Smith and O’Neal lounging in front of the television fits with the criticism of the show – namely, that three former NBA stars have become curmudgeons perpetually dissatisfied with the generations of players who have their have taken over as successor.
Most famously, Phoenix Suns star Kevin Durant was outraged by Barkley’s criticism.
“This won’t be tiring, Chuck?” Durant tweeted in March after Barkley called him “sensitive” in a 60 Minutes segment.
“Great player,” Barkley said of Durant, adding, “He’s of the generation that thinks you can’t criticize him.”
Bill Hader as Ernie Johnson Jr., Kenan Thompson as Charles Barkley during the “Inside the NBA” skit on May 16, 2009
SNL’s Inside The NBA sketch returned in 2022, starring Alex Moffat as Ernie Johnson and Chris Redd (right) as Kenny Smith
Barkley, who certainly faced his fair share of criticism as a player, refrains from getting too personal. O’Neal and Smith are even less judgmental, and when it comes time to criticize someone, they try to stick to the facts as much as possible.
“I never question your passion, your work ethic or your integrity,” Smith said. “I can’t measure that.” But I can understand whether you didn’t run back in defense. And I was able to show that several times [on replay] and I was able to prove my point. But to say that you don’t run back because you don’t have passion becomes subjective and then we lose the meaning of “You don’t run back.”
And besides, Johnson, Barkley, Smith and O’Neal aren’t particularly worried about criticism from outsiders.
“I don’t think anyone criticizes us more or makes fun of us more than we make fun of each other,” Smith added. “We know each other so well that we could dig into a place where no one else could dig. And we do it.”
There was no shortage of that on Tuesday.
When Johnson performed some basic arithmetic during a segment, Barkley quickly disparaged his subsequent gloating: “You’re bragging because you can count?”
Minutes later, O’Neal took the opportunity to remind Barkley, 60, “You just got a new hip.”
Undeterred, Barkley bragged again: “I have two of them.”
Ernie Johnson (center left) tries out an iGrow laser-based hair growth helmet during a 2017 episode of Inside The NBA
The back and forth continues offscreen, the only difference being that Barkley sometimes wears bifocals and O’Neal’s soft speaking voice is barely audible without a microphone.
Whatever the conversation, the four have their respective roles.
“The slapstick, I’m not going to lie, is mostly Shaq,” Smith said. “Shaq has come up with the most when it comes to hardcore slapstick comedy.” He’s very quick with it.
“The controversy always — 99 percent — comes from Chuck,” Smith continued.
“I’m the team psychologist and Ernie is the overall referee – he’s there to make sure everything moves.”
And the show certainly moves by touching on a range of topics in each segment while maintaining the trademark banter.
Even competitors like Scott Van Pelt from ESPN appreciate the dynamic interaction between the four co-hosts.
“You, me, everyone who consumes this, we all love Inside The NBA,” Van Pelt told Jimmy Traina on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast in June 2022. Because it’s a great time. They are simply the rarest things. “The combination of personalities and real relentlessness that Charles and the whole group have, with Ernie just the maestro making it all work out when it ends, I’m sad.”
Van Pelt didn’t predict the end of “Inside The NBA,” but the show will have to evolve at some point as Barkley & Co. retire.
Barkley signed a 10-year, $100 million contract before the season, so he’s not expected to opt out any time soon. But when he spoke to Traina in August, he admitted he couldn’t imagine fulfilling the contract.
“There’s no chance I’ll be working when I’m 70,” Barkley said. ‘Zero.’
Barry admitted that TNT Sports is already preparing for Barkley’s eventual retirement, and while he declined to name candidates, he is keenly aware that Chuck’s eventual successor will be a big departure.
Charles Barkley kisses the back of a donkey after losing a bet against Kenny Smith in which he promised to “kiss his ass”.
‘We want [Barkley] “Being here, but we also want him to be happy and live his life and when he feels like he’s had enough, it’s time to move on,” Barry said. “We have people in mind that we think are interesting.”
“It won’t be Charles, it won’t be Shaq, it won’t be Kenny, it won’t be Ernie and it certainly won’t be them together,” Barry continued, addressing the future of the show. “But we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t have ideas about how we thought we could keep a show — if not this show — interesting and progressive.”
For now, however, Barkley’s continued presence on the panel is significant for TNT Sports both internationally and domestically.
As one of the most recognizable faces in sports media, Barkley has the power to entertain millions of NBA fans on both sides of the Atlantic while attracting new viewers. And with the NBA’s $24 billion media rights deal expiring at the end of next season, that’s no small feat.
NBC, Amazon and Netlix are rumored to be eyeing NBA rights, but what those platforms are missing is Barkley, who appears to be becoming more and more popular as he gets older.
And to a certain extent, the same can be said about all four co-hosts.
While Inside The NBA’s post-game show once served to fill scheduling gaps before a late-night movie on TNT, the show has become an appointment viewing for many, necessitating longer and longer broadcasts.
“Back in the day, when I first came off the bench, it was like the post-game show ended on the hour,” Smith said. “So if the game ended at 9:40 a.m., the postgame show would only last 20 minutes.”
“Now it’s like, ‘We’re going to be on by an hour, but if it ends at 9:40, that means you’re on for an hour.’ [and 20 minutes].”So we have so much more time.’
And with new audiences in the UK and Ireland, Ernie, Chuck, Shaq and Jet will have even more people to entertain.
“In two years,” Smith concluded, “there will be great appreciation.” [in the UK]similar to when European football came along [to the US].’
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