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Sometimes, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Or at least threatens to be gone.
That’s how Charles Barkley negotiated a nine-figure deal for himself. The former basketball star and current sports analyst publicly talked in the past about potentially retiring from TNT talk show Inside the NBA when his contract ended in 2025. Instead, he’s sticking around for 10 more years after signing a contract with TNT that is reportedly worth over $100 million and could be worth eventually $200 million, reported the New York Post’s Andrew Marchand Monday.
Barkley told The Dan Patrick Show Tuesday morning that TNT approached him about staying on as they prepped to bid for a new NBA rights agreement, which was also set to end in 2025.
“TNT asked me like ‘We need something from you. Would you give us something?’ and I said, ‘What do you want?’ They’re like, ‘We need you to stay longer. We can’t lose you and bid on the NBA,’” Barkley said. “They asked me if I would sign for a couple more years and I said, ‘you guys have been great to me, I’ll stay a couple more years.’”
But, he added, “There’s probably zero chance I’m gonna stay for the entire ten years.”
Barkley has made it clear in the past that he’s hoping to rest his feet a bit. “I don’t want to die on TV. I want to die on the golf course or somewhere fishing,” he said in a conference with Dallas Morning News back in February. “I don’t want to be sitting inside over [by] fat-ass Shaq [waiting] to drop dead.”
But it wasn’t all about retirement; he also explored other opportunities. Over the summer, Barkley spoke about potentially leaving TNT to provide commentary for LIV Golf, a venture backed by Saudi Arabia. But after a bit of back and forth, Barkley stuck with his first love. “I’m staying with Turner for the rest of my TV career,” he told the Post in June.
Using an outside offer is an established strategy to solidify your worth to an employer, providing an upper hand when talks of a contract or a raise rolls around. “Organizations will lose sight of how valuable someone is on the market, so sometimes it’s good to help them realize that,” Hannah Riley Bowles, senior lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, told Harvard Business Review.
Waffling on retirement can also be a good strategy for more senior, big talent looking to demonstrate their value to a company, enabling them to create a bit of a scarcity mindset around themselves and ultimately bargain for more money. Many workers who joined the Great Resignation retired early (although many would consider unretiring).
But Barkley resisted joining the trend, noting that the family he created with his coworkers helped solidify his decision. And there was of course the offer he couldn’t refuse. “I’m not gonna lie, though, this is a life-altering deal … and I’m blessed to be able to do live television for a living,” he said.
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