Charles Barkley Dares ESPN To Fire Him In Brutally Honest Statement
Chuck isn't messing around.
Charles Barkley has been employed by ESPN for just more than a year, but would want nothing more than the four-letter network to fire him, and he isn't afraid to admit it.
Throughout his media career, Barkley has been open and honest about his job situations and contracts. After ‘Inside The NBA’ made the jump to ESPN, one may have assumed that Chuck would be a bit more buttoned up about those details, given the network's reach across various sports and, frankly, its large number of employees making a wide-range of salaries.
That hasn't been the case at all.
READ: Charles Barkley Proved In One Day That He's The Only Person At ESPN With Balls
Barkley joined ‘The Dan Le Batard Show’ earlier this week on his own free will, which is certainly a choice, and sent a not-so-subtle message to the higher-ups at ESPN regarding both his current employment and his future.
Charles Barkley isn't changin' for nobody. Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
After saying that the national championship game between Miami and Indiana was a great game, Barkley went on a bit of a tangent about "punk ass reporters." He was alluding to the controversy involving Lynn Jones of the Jacksonville Free Press praising Jaguars head coach Liam Coen in the middle of his postgame press conference following the team's playoff loss to the Buffalo Bills.
"Can I say [Miami] had a great year?" Barkley jokingly asked. " I don’t want all these punk-ass reporters and clowns talking bad about me like they did that lady in Jacksonville who had a moment of humanity.
"Think about that, Dan. Jacksonville had a great year. They won four games last year. And we got so many punks on television and on radio now, because I don’t get into the social media stuff, but I started looking and it was a big story brewing. ‘Is this woman serious? She’s supposed to be a journalist.’ Have we got to the point now where you just have to be an idiot or fool or jackass to be on television or podcast or something now?"
When asked a follow-up question about how the folks at ESPN are reacting to him calling out reporters and the media, Barkley kept things as authentic as possible.
"They can fire me," Barkley said with a smile. "I got seven years on my contract. I’m 100 percent retired, but if I can do something just a little bit stupid so they have to fire me, they’ll have to pay me for the whole seven years."
There may not be another person in all of sports media that could make that type of comment and not get absolutely crucified for it, but it's a reminder that Barkley is truly 1 of 1.
Barkley has been nothing but himself since jumping into the media world 25 years ago, and when you couple that with his entertaining personality, you build up such a rapport with the entire sports world that you are actually applauded for daring your employer to can you instead of playing safe the way society wants you to.