Exclusive: Amazon Prime Could Pay Shaq and Charles Barkley More Than TNT & NBC, as Per Ex-Agent

Shaq and Chuck – they have become household names. One doesn’t come without the other. Their brotherhood and dynamic propelled Inside The NBA on TNT to become one of the most successfully running sports shows on television. Their bickering, nitpicking, and humor swooned the audience. One can’t imagine them not sharing the screen, let alone completely stopping their partnership altogether. However, that’s the risk that has come with the newest media rights deal set to be put in place by the NBA.

Big players such as NBC, Amazon, and TNT are engaged in a heated war to have season games streamed on their platforms. Turner Sports is at the most risk, having to collide with NBC. The fate of Inside the NBA and Shaquille O’Neal and Barkley’s tandem rests on their decision. During an hour-long interview, legendary sports marketer Leonard Armato discussed the future of the beloved duo with EssentiallySports’ very own NBA correspondent Vishal Kolar.

Armato is the kingpin of sports marketing. His colorful career consists of managing blockbuster stars such as Oscar De La Hoya and Hakeem Olajuwon. A genius of the industry, one of his first clients was none other than the Big Diesel. Having a heavy hand in building ‘Shaq’ as a brand, Armato is well-versed in really understanding how he functions and thinks, including his ideologies. So, who better to comment on the latest developments that are taking place for him, in case TNT really drops the beloved NBA show?

Vishal: Very polarizing news around the NBA’s deal with TNT possibly coming to an end. I don’t think I am speaking for myself, but every basketball fan’s favorite show is the show with Kenny, Shaq, and Chuck. Now that ‘Inside the NBA’ might not exist, that means breaking up Shaq and Barkley; how do you see that from a fan’s perspective in terms of changing the NBA media landscape? And do you think that Shaq and Chuck would stay together if they go to another media network together? 

Armato: It seemed about a week and a half ago that NBC was going to take the package and NBA was gonna get kicked to the curb. But I think what’s happened is that David Zaslav, who’s the head of Warner Bros Discovery who owns TNT, doesn’t want that to happen that easily. They’re fighting hard to keep it. It’s still up in the air, but it’s going to happen. 

“Should TNT lose the NBA, the likelihood is that Shaq and Chuck break up which would be a shame. But there’s one little wild card that you need to keep in mind,”. 

Armato revealed the powers of Adam Silver to be the leveraging factor for the survival of Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley on television.

Armato: “Adam Silver in the NBA controls who it is that will be reporting on the NBA. So they can say look, you can’t break up Chuck and Shaq. We just love that combination too much. You could see Shaq and Chuck going to an NBC or could see them going someplace else. There’s no question that they are the most entertaining duo in all of basketball and there’s no other show that even compares to Inside the NBA on TNT.”

It might not evoke the same emotions as the infamous partnership of Smith, Shaq, Chuck, and Johnson, but there is a high probability of the NBA retaining the duo in question. But which platform will work best for them? NBC has the outreach. Amazon Prime has the future of television in its palms. Armato used his veteran knowledge to explain the ramifications of each case.

Vishal: But do you think that it works the same on streaming? Like, at least I am skeptical that if you take them off national TV and put them on Amazon Prime it’s not going to have the same viewership appeal and kind of culture, any thoughts on that?

Armato: Well first of all, if it airs on NBC, it would be even bigger in terms of audience. Since it reaches even more people than TNT. So yes, it would be great on NBC. As far as Amazon Prime goes, I don’t think the audience on Amazon Prime would be as big as the audience on TNT because they don’t have that history. You’ve seen what they’ve done with the NFL. It took a while to grow their audience. So, I would agree that the audience wouldn’t be as big if they’re on Amazon Prime, at least at the beginning. But Amazon would look to at Shaq and Chuck as a way to grow the audience, so they may even pay them more money because of that, who knows.

Either way, the security over Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley’s nagging one remains high. The duo who began their bond throwing punches on the NBA court have now become an inseparable pairing. Television won’t seem complete without the entire crew, of course. But if the audience can achieve salvation with a part of the team, they shall most likely take it.

Amazon Prime wants to compete with the big players

Currently, the NBA is among the top 3 major US sports leagues to not have a streaming partnership with any major media conglomerate. But that’s certainly going to change soon. According to many reports, Amazon Prime will soon have exclusive streaming rights for NBA regular season and post-season games, including some games from the Conference semi-finals and finals. This will bring Amazon to own second major sport after the National Football League, with whom they’re already rolling out the Thursday Night Football segments. The streaming titan will eventually bring millions of viewers to their platform.

With Shaq and Chuck’s show also coming in their stake in raking in more revenues will grow manifolds. With a deal like this, traditional platforms will start to die down but still will diversify media outreach and coverage on a global scale.

The Amazon and NBA deal is also expected to last for a decade, starting from the 2025-26 season. With no official comments either from the NBA or from Amazon, it only remains to be seen what comes out of all the speculations soon, but there are major expectations that this will soon be a reality.

With Amazon’s support, the NBA’s future growth is set in stone, since they will get global audiences unlike what’s happening today. The league has already made it pretty clear that they want to define themselves as a frontier of viewing with a streaming giant as the center of it all. With the growing demands of streaming services, it only makes sense that the NBA pivots to new levels, with the foundational support that Amazon Prime’s model can provide.

While we still have NBC, Comcast, and others in the picture, trying to make deals and negotiations with the NBA, Amazon still looks like beating the competition against such rivals. This will turn out to be a much more lucrative deal for Adam Silver, splashing money into the somewhat dying revenue streams for the NBA. Of course, Comcast and other rivals’ popularity doesn’t even come close to the popularity that Amazon Prime enjoys, so naturally as much as people are sad with the end of an era for NBA and TNT, they will start to gravitate towards Prime, which will dictate the future of sports.

These and many other insights and excerpts come directly from the brief conversation EssentiallySports had with Leonard Armato. Do be on the lookout for more such interesting stories from the interview coming in soon.