{"id":7676,"date":"2025-05-04T00:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T00:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/7676\/"},"modified":"2025-05-04T00:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T00:58:10","slug":"roundball-rock-nbcs-beloved-sports-anthem-returning-to-networks-nba-coverage-next-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/7676\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Roundball Rock,\u2019 NBC\u2019s beloved sports anthem, returning to network\u2019s NBA coverage next season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NBC will bring back \u201cRoundball Rock,\u201d its beloved sports theme song, next season when the network begins its 11-year media rights deal to air NBA games.<\/p>\n<p>Music composer and radio and TV personality John Tesh wrote \u201cRoundball Rock,\u201d which became popular during NBC\u2019s coverage of the league from 1990 to 2002. Fans will hear the song again for NBA coverage across NBC and Peacock after the league <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/5673774\/2024\/08\/05\/nba-media-rights-espn-nbc-amazon-plan\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">signed a blockbuster 11-year, $77 billion deal<\/a> with ESPN, Amazon and NBC, beginning in 2025-26.<\/p>\n<p>The NBA moved its coverage from NBC to ESPN in 2002, causing the popular basketball anthem to be shelved.<\/p>\n<p>NBC announced the return of \u201cRoundball Rock\u201d during Saturday\u2019s Kentucky Derby coverage in an ad featuring Tesh, the Los Angeles Lakers\u2019 Luka Don\u010di\u0107, sports announcer Mike Tirico and several stars from NBC shows.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Ever feel like EVERYONE has that one song stuck in their head? \ud83c\udfc0<\/p>\n<p>The NBA on NBC and Peacock \u2013 coming this fall! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gpKMXlklFg\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/gpKMXlklFg<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBA on NBC and Peacock (@NBAonNBC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBAonNBC\/status\/1918794650405446108?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">May 3, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m truly honored to be back with my friends at NBC Sports,\u201d Tesh said in a statement. \u201cFrom our first meeting, (NBC Sports president) Rick Cordella had a powerful vision for bringing \u2018Roundball Rock\u2019 back to its one true home. Along with millions of other fans, I\u2019ll be front row center for the epic launch in the fall.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tesh <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/1849524\/2020\/06\/23\/how-network-tv-sports-jingles-are-born\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">told The Athletic in 2020<\/a> that he came up with the idea for the song in the middle of the night while in France. He didn\u2019t have a tape recorder at his hotel, so he called his home phone in Los Angeles and hummed the music on his answering machine.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">(Photo: Robbie Jay Barratt \/ AMA \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBC will bring back \u201cRoundball Rock,\u201d its beloved sports theme song, next season when the network begins its&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,2284,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-7676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-culture","10":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114446853978704626","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}