When the upcoming basketball season ends, you can expect to see a lot less of Charles Barkley.
“I’m looking forward to this last year,” Barkley, 63, told Alabama’s WFSA12 in a video shared Monday, September 28. “TV has been great to me. I’m going to take a step back from public life.”
Barkley already announced that the 2026-2027 NBA season will be his last on Inside the NBA, and with the preseason just days away he doesn’t appear to be second-guessing his decision to leave the cameras behind.
“It’s been a great run, been a great journey,” he continued. “I thank everybody for their support all these years, but I’ll be 64 years old and you know Ernie [Johnson] asked me to stay a couple more years and last year was one, this year is two, but I feel really good. It’s gonna be more like a celebration because I’ve had the greatest life a person could have.”
Barkley, who was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006, retired from the NBA in 2000 and has been covering the sport on TV ever since. He was a fixture on Inside the NBA throughout its run on TNT and has remained in its transition to ESPN in 2025. Barkley has also joined Johnson, 70, on Turner Sports’ men’s March Madness coverage since 2011.
This is not the first time Barkley has said he would retire from television. He originally announced his plan to step aside in 2024, before reversing course and opting to stay on as he fulfills a 10-year, $210 million contract.
But he also confirmed to Bill Simmons earlier this month that this NBA season would, in fact, be his last.
“Me and Ernie are a package deal,” Barkley said in an appearance on “The Bill Simmons Podcast.” “So right now, unless Ernie changes his mind, next year is my last year 100 percent.”
He also recalled TNT not believing him two years ago when he first said he was ready to retire.
“I told TNT I was going to retire at 60. And they were like, ‘Oh, he’s full of sh*t. He’s not gonna retire,’” Barkley said.
He continued, “So we come up, I said, ‘Hey guys, it’s my last year.’ They’re like, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘I told y’all six years ago I was gonna retire at 60.’ They’re like, ‘ You were serious?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I was serious.’ Then they said to me, ‘Do us a favor. Stay two more years, ’til we get the new deal.’ I talked it over with my friends. I said, ‘OK, I’ll tell you what. I’ll stay ’til 62,’ which was last year … little did I know these f***ing idiots was gonna lose the NBA.”
