Charles Barkley bashes NIL requests, reveals no interest in helping Auburn

Charles Barkley is not against college athletes being paid in the NIL era, but funding contracts will not come from his pockets, he says. The former Auburn great and Basketball Hall of Famer said this week he has zero interest in donating to the Tigers’ basketball or football programs, even if it means strengthening rosters for a shot at winning national championships.

“I just gave 10 million dollars to HBCUs, that stuff is way more important to me,” Barkley said on a podcast appearance. “I just gave a million dollars to ‘Blight’, in my hometown of Birmingham, to rebuild houses. That stuff is way more important to me than joining the cesspool that is college athletics. We’re such a (expletive) country, Dan. We’ve ruined college athletics, and I don’t wanna even get in that cesspool.” 

Barkley’s diatribe on the current state of college athletics continued as he made a larger point.

“This notion that you have to come up with tens of millions of dollars to pay kids to play basketball, and have them be free agents every year and transfer to another school and get more money every year,” Barkley said. “Like, we don’t even get to do that in the NBA. Can you imagine if players in the NBA got to be free agents every year? I’m not opposed to players getting paid, I want to make that clear. But, this notion we gotta give college kids tens of millions of dollars a year, and basketball is the worst because you’re only gonna get a great player for six months.

“I don’t even see how you’re gonna get the return on investment.” 

Under the leadership of Bruce Pearl this past season, Auburn’s basketball team earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament for the second time in program history and reached the Final Four. On the gridiron, the Tigers are hoping the 2025 campaign shows progress under third-year coach Hugh Freeze, who hasn’t been the home-run hire most expected on The Plains. At least not yet.

Prior to his NBA career, Barkley helped lead Auburn to a 14-14 finish his freshman season and a 15-13 record as a sophomore in 1982-83, the program’s first winning season in six years. Barkley and forward Chuck Person formed arguably the nation’s top frontcourt duo in 1983-84 and propelled the Tigers to their third 20-win season (20-11) and first NCAA Tournament berth in program history as a No. 5 seed. Richmond upset Auburn, 72-71, in the first round that season. 

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Barkley earned SEC Player of the Year honors during his final season with the Tigers and is widely considered the greatest player in program history. He has previously stated part of the reason he signed with Auburn was to bring the program to prominence.