Is ‘Roundball Rock’ Coming Back As Part Of NBC’s NBA Media Rights Deal?

NBC is getting back into the NBA broadcasting game. A former broadcast partner that saw its partnership with the league come to an end back in 2002, NBCUniversal is part of the trio of groups — along with Disney and Amazon — that are going to be part of the NBA’s $76 billion media rights deal that will go into effect in 2025-26 and run for 11 years — while also picking up WNBA rights as part of the package as well.

There are plenty of reasons to be excited about this, like the fact that NBC has experience with major sports properties (NFL, college football, the Premier League) and just generally knows what it is doing when it enters that world. For basketball fans, one thing really sticks out: the possibility that “Roundball Rock” comes back. The iconic anthem for the NBA on NBC, “Roundball Rock” was recorded by John Tesh and is arguably the most recognizable sports theme song of all time.

It’s been adopted by Fox for its college basketball broadcast, and even was the subject of a legendary Saturday Night Live sketch. Now that NBC is getting back into the NBA broadcasting world, the question of whether or not we’ll hear it again is one that plenty of fans want answered. And fortunately, Tesh has told Dan Le Batard that there have been some conversations about this already, in part because of the upcoming Olympic Games.

“They have, actually, yeah,” Tesh said when asked if NBC has reached out about reviving the song. “Nothing firm, but they said, ‘Hey, can you stay frosty on this?’ Like a Navy SEALs thing … We’re actually talking right now about licensing it to them for the Olympics in Paris. So, we’re actually going in at the end of June, we’re heading to Nashville and we’ve got a full orchestra on hold, we’re gonna re-record it. The recording, I think it still sounds great, but I wanted to make a few changes — maybe open up the middle, maybe we’ll send it to you guys, you can turn it into an EDM track.”

And this tease by Tesh got turned into reality after the league announced its new media rights deal. First, NBC tweeted out confirmation with a video that prominently featured the song.

And in its release about the news, NBC told fans that “Roundball Rock” will, indeed, be the theme music. For ’90s NBA fans, it’s hard for there to be better news.