When NBC won back rights to the NBA after decades apart from the league, it was widely assumed “Roundball Rock” would be part of the 11-year, $27 billion package. But less than a year from NBC’s return to pro basketball, the Peacock still doesn’t have rights to the song.
The song hasn’t entirely been in mothballs since soundtracking the NBA’s era of exploding popularity, including all six of Michael Jordan’s titles with the Bulls.
Composer John Tesh has licensed it to Fox for Big East basketball games, and he says he makes close to seven figures on some limited-run commercial deals. But what he has not received is an offer from NBC to license the song for NBA games, Tesh told Front Office Sports in an interview.
CNBC first reported the musical standoff Thursday.
When the NBA was negotiating its new rights contracts, new “Roundball Rock” recordings were seen as tea leaves hinting at an NBC return. And indeed, Tesh cut three versions of the song with a 70-piece orchestra in Nashville, which he’ll release as part of a sports-themed album in March 2025—NBC deal or not.
With the league barreling toward its 11-year, $77 billion media-rights deal beginning next season, Tesh sees only one place for his Saturday Night Live–spoofed, nostalgia-inducing song to go.
“It really belongs on NBC,” Tesh tells Front Office Sports.
When NBC announced on July 26 it had regained the rights to the NBA for the first time since 2002, the network’s official press release twice mentioned the old theme song. “Iconic ‘Roundball Rock’ Theme Music to Return to NBC and Peacock,” read one line, while another touted the song as one of the “highlights of the 11-year partnership.” Through their tears of losing TNT’s Inside the NBA, fans erupted in celebration over the return of the song. Tesh, however, was just confused.
“When I saw it, I was like, ‘What the heck?’” Tesh says. “I called up everybody I knew and I said, ‘Can you read this? Can you tell me what’s going on?’”
A spokesperson for NBC did not immediately respond to questions. Though the NBA’s deal with NBC does not require “Roundball Rock,” a league spokesperson said, its deal with Amazon Prime Video does require a new theme song. And CNBC reported that Tesh had recorded several new songs that Amazon could possibly use.
While the fight for who would win the NBA’s next set of media rights became a highly discussed topic in sports media circles, Tesh hadn’t been waiting on a call about his song. “I hadn’t been following it at all,” he says.
Before the Paris Olympics, NBC purchased a license to use “Roundball Rock” to promote Olympic basketball games. Around the same time as the Games, and shortly before the official NBA announcement, Tesh says NBC’s music department asked whether he’d be interested in licensing the song. He said yes, and the two sides agreed to stay in touch, Tesh says.
The composer, a former employee of NBC, says he then got another call saying the network wanted to get ahead of the questions and put “Roundball Rock” in its press release. “I said, ‘Well, do you really want to do that? You don’t have a deal for ‘Roundball Rock.’ I don’t think it’s a great idea,’” Tesh says. “And so they said, ‘Well, just negotiate with us in good faith after we get back from the Olympics.’”
Soon after came the press release, and floods of interview requests. But Tesh, a former NBC broadcaster, says he was hesitant to make his old boss look bad in the press. He says he was told the network jumped the gun on the press release and was asked to hold off on any interview requests.
“Then it was just sort of crickets,” Tesh says. “I don’t really want to be the guy who’s being accused of, ‘Oh, John is playing hardball here.’ I haven’t been playing any game with these guys because we haven’t been talking to them.”
That is, until the CNBC story emerged Thursday, prompting Tesh to talk about it on his podcast. (NBC and CNBC are both owned by NBCUniversal parent Comcast.)
He joked on the episode that he woke up to “450 texts.” It also led someone from NBC to reach out to him Thursday night, he says.
Tesh declined to talk about the size of the deal he wants from NBC. “I think it needs to be treated more as not the typical sports song,” he said. “A typical negotiation for that probably wouldn’t place the right kind of value on it. … It’s more like a pop tune.” The composer says he nearly sold the rights to the song to venture capitalists, only to be stopped by the oldest of his three “Roundball Rock”–loving grandchildren.
“I’m not standing in the way of ‘Roundball Rock’ being on NBC,” Tesh says. “I would love for it to be there, and I think that’s where it should be.”
