TBS Adds Barkley to NLCS Game Three Lineup
TNT Inside the NBA Analyst Heads to Ballgame
By Ben Grossman -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/11/2007 8:00:00 PM
TBS’ Major League Baseball playoff on-air team has been criticized because they don’t have someone like Charles Barkley, so they went out and got the real thing.
Barkley, who draws constant acclaim for his bombastic and entertaining work on TNT’s Inside the NBA, will be interviewed live in Colorado during TBS’ coverage of Sunday night’s National League Championship Series game three between the Rockies and the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Barkley will be promoting the Oct. 30 season tip-off of Inside the NBA.
TBS’ studio team has drawn mixed reviews for its rookie campaign, with analysts Cal Ripken and Frank Thomas often compared unfavorably to Barkley’s NBA work on sister network TNT.
Studio host Ernie Johnson heads up both shows, which makes the comparisons even easier, although still largely unfair.
"I think a lot of times, producers have said, ‘We need our Charles Barkley.’ And you can’t, there’s just one,” Johnson told Sports Business Daily. “So you really just look at the strengths of whoever is there. We’ve got Cal Ripken, he’s going to be straightforward and really well thought-out and probably not shooting from the hip as much as Charles does because nobody does, so you take it from there and then you build on it.”
