Charles Barkley has long been one of Auburn’s most generous and outspoken supporters. But when it comes to NIL? He's officially done opening his wallet.
During appearances this week on Jox 94.5 and Outkick’s podcast, Barkley unloaded on the current state of college athletics, admitting he once helped Auburn with “legal or illegal” money — but says there’s no chance he’s funding today’s player pay structure.
“I’ve given more money to Auburn, legal or illegal, than any athlete in the history of the school,” Barkley told Greg McElroy and Cole Cubelic. “But 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.”
That comment followed a separate podcast appearance where Barkley made it even clearer: Auburn won’t be seeing NIL money from him.
“I’d do anything for Auburn, within reason,” Barkley said. “But I’m not gonna give Auburn millions of dollars so we can be good in football or basketball. That doesn’t help my life in any capacity.”
Instead, Barkley says he’s focused on giving where he sees real value — including $10 million to HBCUs and millions more to blight-reduction efforts in his hometown of Birmingham.
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“That stuff is way more important to me than joining the cesspool that is college athletics,” he added. “We’ve ruined college athletics, and I don’t even want to get in that cesspool.”
While Barkley made it clear he’s not anti-NIL — he supports players getting paid — he believes the system is broken and offers no return for boosters funding one-and-done transfers.
“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,” Barkley said. “We don’t even get to do that in the NBA.”
It’s a bold statement from someone who once admitted he’d pay $100,000 to help Auburn land a recruit (per Awful Announcing) — back when it was against the rules.
Now that the game has changed and the money’s out in the open, Barkley says he’s out. Not because it’s illegal — but because it’s not worth it