Are Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley Going Off NBA Television? Amazon’s NFL-Like Basketball Program Has TNT Fans Worried

The NBA broadcasting scene is going through definite changes. That also means lineups of basketball analysts are going to shake up. The Inside the NBA crew on TNT is the leading show currently, but it’s being threatened by streaming giants as predicted by Charles Barkley. Now fans are biting their nails, questioning if this means an end to the legendary banter between him and Shaquille O’Neal alongside NBA sportscasting.

Sports media is getting cutting edge starting from the new NFL-based show. An NBA version of it is in the works and could threaten the Inside Guys’ job.

New Amazon show rivals NBA on TNT

Charles Barkley already foreshadowed it. After the NBA was a staple on TNT and ESPN, streaming titans like Amazon are entering sports media. The NBA media rights are going to be discussed soon and Amazon is already upping the ante. It expanded its sports catalog with a new kind of NFL show and hopes to repeat the same with NBA broadcasting.

According to an initial report, “Amazon is seeking to create the NBA’s version of ‘Thursday Night Football.’ Amazon wants to create an exclusive night of NBA streaming action on Tuesday or Thursday nights.”

Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime enhances NFL viewing with self-learning AI-based analysis. This AI will give statistics, identify potential blitzes in a video game visual style, and give highlights. Now this threatens the human sportscasters who used to do this in a broadcasting booth live.

If this comes to the NBA, it will threaten sportscasters like Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal as well as Ernie Johnson and Kenny “The Jet” Smith on Inside the NBA. But it’s too soon to tell that the robots are stealing this job too.

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According to the creators, the Thursday Night Football model’s goal is to show the game from the eyes of the quarterback. The quarterback, though, can naturally not analyze accurately. The AI tool is not the most accurate and it has been a little frustrating to viewers. Some theorize that Amazon is using a delay to see blitzes coming instead of predicting it live.

The AI-based broadcasting is not impressing viewers so far. Fans want the human element like Shaq and Chuck’s irrelevant arguments and the crew racing Kenny to the board. They don’t want to read highlights off the screen but want the analysts to deliver their predictions. Therefore, this news received mixed reactions.

Fans refuse to let go of Inside Crew

The AI-based sportscasting concept in basketball is already meeting resistance. Fans are pointing out that a Thursday Night Football concept already existed on TNT. They only want to see an NBA game covered by the Inside Crew.

Others are just hassled by the inconvenience of not having maximum sports viewing on a single paid platform.

The only positive about this news is that fans are open to NBA broadcasts more than once a week. But that would also depend on analysts like Shaq and Barkley’s availability.

The Inside Guys signed contract extensions with TNT but Sir Charles has hinted he’s going to retire before the contract is up. However, he also hinted that he’s open to jumping ship as long as it’s the same crew: even his nemesis, Shaq. Fans speculate the same.

Regardless, the loyalty remains with Shaq, Chuck, Ernie, and Kenny.

What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments below.

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