NBA legend Charles Barkley has spoken against NIL and the copious amounts of money that collegiate athletes are receiving today, but that doesn’t mean he’s a stranger to getting collegiate athletes paid himself.
Barkley recently appeared on Greg McElroy and Cole Cubelic’s on their Jox 94.5 morning show, where he admitted that he has given large amounts of money to his almater, Auburn, with some of it being under the table.
“I’ve given more money to Auburn, legal or illegal, than any athlete in the history of the school,” Barkley said, according to Awful Announcing.
“And the notion that I’m going to come up with a couple million dollars every year so that we can be good at basketball and football — that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Barkley is insisting that he’s not going to shell out millions in NIL funding to keep Auburn competitive.
“One thing I’m pretty sure of, Black and broke don’t work, in any municipality in the world. I’ve been rich for a long time. I plan to stay that way. But the notion that I’m going to give Auburn millions of dollars every year so we can be good at sports, that’s just not going to happen.
“I’m really proud of what I’ve given Auburn and I’m going to continue to give them money, but I’m not going to give them millions of dollars every year so we can be good at sports. That’s just stupid.
“People will be talking about me behind my back. ‘How did that guy go broke? How did he lose all that money?’ Because y’all wanted to be good at sports, fool!”