It’s been over a year since ESPN agreed to license Inside the NBA from TNT Sports. And they’ve, for the most part, delivered on their promise of keeping the show as intact as possible by retaining the core of Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, Shaquille O’Neal, and their behind-the-scenes staff. However, as of late, the show has been subjected to some unusual treatment.

If you’ve been keeping an eye on the clock while watching Inside the NBA, you might have noticed that the show’s screentime has decreased. In fact, according to Rob Perez, “The last Inside the NBA episode until the regular season finale just ran for a *grand total* of 23 minutes (with commercials).”

This, of course, is a steep downfall from the usual 30 to 60-minute timeframe the show is supposed to run on air.

Typically, the pregame show on ESPN lasts about an hour, while dropping to 30 minutes on ABC. And even though the postgame is scheduled for 30-minute windows, it often runs much longer than that, leading into SportsCenter. So, it goes without saying that ESPN, despite promising to give the show as much run time as possible, has seemingly turned its back on the fans. But why?

Well, Perez believes that it might have something to do with the ABC’s local affiliates.

“Because the game went long into overtime, I am going to assume the ABC affiliates wanted their network back for local news at the top of the hour. There was that huge gap between shows at the beginning of the regular season; it’s happening again at the end of it, and anytime they’re on ABC, they have only a couple segments before having to sign off,” he pointed out.

“ESPN broadcasts are a bit longer, which is fine, but it will just never be the same as it was on TNT,” he continued. “I am a disgruntled loyal customer who gave new ownership a chance, and would like to turn in my membership card.”

Seemingly, this decrease in screen time, regardless of whether it was deliberate or not, has left the fans as well as the panelists fuming.

Charles Barkley calls out ESPN for not using Inside the NBA

Former NBA superstar Charles Barkley has never been shy about voicing his opinions. So, recently, the Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer spoke to Dan Patrick on his podcast about his unhappiness over the lack of television appearances so far.

“We’ve complained; we’ve only been on ESPN four times in three months. I don’t like that at all. What I was talking about was working all the time, because I love watching basketball – I’m not going to do all these damn shows,” he said.

“I’m not going to be on ESPN One, Two, Three, Deportes, Nacho, Echo, whatever they call it. I’m not going to be doing all that, but I wish we had been on more during the first half of the season.”

Well, he’s right about feeling underutilized by the network. ESPN has hosted a handful of national games every week since they remain one of the important NBA networks. However, they still haven’t used those games to feature one of the best studio teams in the business much.