ESPN Anchor Teases Charles Barkley About Joining The Network, Chuck Doesn’t Deny It

ESPN

Charles Barkley was a guest on ESPN’s pregame coverage of Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals and anchor Steve Levy wasted no time making a joke about Chuck making the jump from TNT to ESPN.

While opening ESPN on ABC’s coverage of Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers, Levy made a crack about Charles Barkley joining ESPN if TNT loses its NBA broadcasting rights after next season.

“Steve Levy, Mark Messier, PK Subban, and the newest member of ESPN’s NBA coverage?” Levy joked to Barkley as he was opening the broadcast.

“Hey, Mark owes me $5000! He owes me $5000, he’s never paid me. I took a delay of game — he was sitting courtside in Canada. This is a true story, I said, ‘Ref, I need to go talk to the great Mark Messier. He’s like, ‘Chuck, you’re going to get a delay of game,’ I said, ‘I don’t care!'” Chuck replied.

“It was the first time I had been around him in my life. He was sitting on the front row, I said, ‘I’ll take the fine.’ But Mark, you owe $5000. That was like 25 years ago.” 

Barkley’s future on TNT is currently up in the air as reports indicate that TNT was outbid for the NBA’s broadcasting rights, which would make the 2024-25 season the last year that Inside the NBA is on the air.

However, recent reports indicate that despite the fact that TNT lost the NBA’s “B package” to NBA, the company is reportedly negotiating for a new smaller “D package” that would keep both NBA games and Inside the NBA on the air.

If Inside the NBA did conclude following the 2024-25 season, Barkley — if he wanted to continue working — could land a job at any network he wanted given that he’s been one of the most popular personalities in sports media for over two decades.