Charles Barkley Gives LIV a Deadline on Contract Offer: ‘Don’t Be Wasting My Time’

Charles Barkley commentates from the booth during The Match: Champions For Charity at Meda
Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images for The Match
Warner Todd Huston

TNT broadcaster and former NBA star Charles Barkley says he doesn’t want to wait around any more and has given the Saudi-backed LIV golf league a deadline to present a contract offer.

Barkley admitted last week that he has had a conversation with LIV and is open to hosting their broadcasts, but he has yet to receive a serious offer.

Speaking Monday on the Dan Patrick Show, Barkley said he’s already tired of waiting for an offer and has now given LIV a deadline.

“I’m gonna give them a deadline. The deadline is gonna be Thursday. I’m playing at the Pro-Am Thursday,” Barkley told Patrick. “I’m not gonna keep TNT in limbo. I don’t think it’s fair to them. They’ve gotten plenty of play out of me coming to play out there Thursday. I’m not just gonna be no show pony. Don’t be wasting my time. I’m not gonna waste y’all time. When I leave New Jersey Thursday night, when I leave the golf course, if I don’t have an offer, it’s over.”

Barkley also talked about the large amount of cash he hopes to be offered.

“Somebody said Phil Mickelson got $200 million. You take that money. Somebody said Dustin Johnson got $150 million, and Bryson [DeChambeau] and Brooks [Koepka] $150 million to play golf 15 times a year. I have no problem with them taking that money. And if they offer me something crazy, I’m gonna take it too,” he said.

According to the Post, Barkley earns $10 million yearly as an NBA analyst at TNT. So, that may be the baseline he’s hinting at.

It isn’t likely that Barkley intends to quit TNT for LIV broadcasts — and he still has three years left on his TNT contract — but he already said last week that he doesn’t see why he can’t do both.

“In a perfect scenario, I would love to do both,” Barkley told the New York Post on July 21. “I don’t know how Turner’s sponsors are going to feel about it. I know there is going to be some blowback.”

Blowback might include losing some endorsements if he were to quit TNT and work exclusively for the “crazy money” offered by the Saudis. In addition, many sponsors are still skittish over LIV and its links to the oppressive Saudi Arabian regime.
Still, as far as Barkley is concerned, he is not worried about taking “blood money.”

In comments last week about his talks with LIV, Barkley dismissed criticism that taking money from the Saudi regime is akin to taking “blood money.”

As Barkley told the New York Post: “I told [Gregg Norman], ‘Listen, they are making up words, like ‘blood money’ and ‘sports washing.’ I said, ‘We have all taken ‘blood money’ and we all have ‘sports washed’ something, so I don’t like those words, to be honest with you.'”

“If you are in pro sports, you are taking some type of money from not a great cause,” he added.

“I’m a Nike guy, also, so I’m not going to do that thing where I pick and choose what I’m outraged about, where my money comes from. I just don’t think that is fair. I think that makes you a hypocrite,” Barkley concluded. “And let’s be fair, all these golf tours have played in Saudi Arabia and China. That was my point.”

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.