With NBC potentially securing the NBA’s television rights again, the fan-favorite “Roundball Rock” theme song could make a return.
The NBA is working on a new television deal for the start of the 2025-26 season and reportedly wants three media partners. The league “is close to deals with both Disney and Amazon,” and the third is likely to go to NBCUniversal or Warner Bros. Discovery.
NBCUniversal reportedly offered the NBA $2.5 billion per year to acquire the rights it lost to Disney over 20 years ago, according to The Wall Street Journal. That deal is supposedly double Warner Bros. Discovery’s reported $1.2 billion offer, but the media partner “continues to be in talks with the league to keep the rights,” per CNBC.
If NBCUniversal wins the bidding war, NBA fans will surely be sad about losing TNT’s “Inside the NBA,” but the silver lining would be the possible return of “Roundball Rock,” everyone’s favorite NBA theme song.
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“Roundball Rock” has not taken fans into an NBA game since 2002.
The rights to the theme song were acquired by Fox Sports to be used for college basketball during the 2018-19 season, but the deal “doesn’t preclude any media company from using the song for NBA games,” according to the song’s writer, John Tesh, in an interview with CNBC.
“If NBC Sports wins the rights, it’s free to once again license ‘Roundball Rock’ from Tesh, who owns the song, the composer said in an e-mail,” according to CNBC’s report.
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John Tesh is the author — and owner — of “Roundball Rock,” the former NBA on NBC theme song.
Around 15 years ago, Tesh told one of his concert audiences the story of how the song came together. He was sitting in a hotel room and did not have access to a piano, so he had to call his at-home answering machine and leave himself a reminder message, trying to mimic the tune with his voice.
As a result, the world-famous NBA tune was born.
Tesh told CNBC that he could not reveal how much he was paid (or will be paid) for the song because of a non-disclosure agreement, but he did note that he is compensated with royalties based on the song’s number of plays.
The song has since become a staple of NBA culture, and its popularity has transcended sports. Even “Saturday Night Live” did an entire skit with the song that resurfaces every year around the NBA Playoffs.
