The NBA is on the verge of new media rights deals with a few different companies that will bring $76 billion in revenue to the league, according to The Wall Street Journal. Commissioner Adam Silver and the league office have been working towards an agreement on new broadcasting and media deals that will go into effect following the 2024-25 season for weeks, and it finally appears as if a conclusion is in sight. The NBA is set to agree to deals with ESPN, NBC, and Amazon, which leaves Warner Bros. Discover, the parent company of TNT, out of the picture. This means Inside the NBA, a beloved basketball program with Ernie Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal, Kenny “The Jet” Smith, and Charles Barkley will likely come to an end.

The new media rights deal the NBA is set to close on is over the course of 11 years with ESPN, NBC, and Amazon. ESPN has the biggest package at $2.6 billion per year, which gives them exclusive rights to the NBA Finals, a conference final, weekly primetime games, the WNBA, and likely shared international rights, according to SBJ. The deal with NBC, which is valued at around $2.5 billion per year, brings the NBA back onto the network for the first time since 2002. This package will essentially be the same as what TNT has had through the years, as NBC will get two primetime windows a week, conference semifinals, and a conference final.

Amazon will be paying about $1.8 billion annually for the rights to the Emirates In-Season Tournament, the SoFi Play-In Tournament, first-round playoff games, the WNBA, and international rights.

Warner Bros. Discovery and their CEO, David Zaslav, have really messed up their relationship with the NBA. It seemed like this relationship began to fracture when Zaslav stated that his company doesn't “have to have the NBA” before the negotiations for a new media deal even began. The executive later backtracked on his words by claiming that the league was great, but the damage had been done.

Although Warner owns the rights to match any offer from competitors, the deal the league is about to agree to with NBC is outside the company's pay range. Warner is about $40 billion in debt right now, and it is assumed that they do not have the same infrastructure that NBC does in order to obtain one of the new NBA media rights deals, according to SBJ.

The belief is that WBD would need to pay more than $2.6 billion just to match NBC's current offer. Now, Warner Bros. Discovery can either pull out of the offer entirely, wind up overpaying to keep their deal with the NBA, or they can opt to take the league to court based on their clause to match any deal from rival companies.

Still, the most likely outcome is that the NBA will no longer be on TNT, thus ending the beloved Inside the NBA show. The crew, especially Charles Barkley, has not held back their true feelings on the matter.

“Morale sucks. Plain and simple. I just feel so bad for the people I work with, Dan,” Barkley told Dan Patrick recently. “These people have families, and I just really feel bad for them right now. You know, these people I work with, they screwed this thing up clearly, and we don’t have zero idea of what’s going to happen.”

O'Neal and Smith have not commented on the matter all that much, but Johnson has remained optimistic in hopes that Warner Bros. Discovery will figure out how to maintain their media rights with the NBA. Unfortunately, this no longer appears to be a viable option, as the NBA is moving forward with their new deals in place.