In a surprise announcement Thursday morning on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz, the program had obtained a new version of “Roundball Rock,” the iconic theme song for the NBA on NBC composed by John Tesh. The NBA recently announced that it had agreed to new 11-year media rights deals with The Walt Disney Company (ESPN/ABC), NBCUniversal (NBC/Peacock) and Amazon’s Prime Video, reportedly worth a collective $77 billion.
With the return of the NBA to NBCUniversal properties for the first time since 2002, basketball fans were nostalgic for the return of the synonymous introduction music. NBCUniversal has utilized the original version of the song during its basketball coverage within the Olympic Games Paris 2024, and Tesh has licensed the song to various entities over the years, including on college basketball telecasts from FOX Sports.
Tesh previously appeared on the program in May and confirmed that NBC had reached out to him about reviving the theme song. Additionally, he revealed that he was headed to Nashville, Tenn. at the end of June with a full orchestra intending to re-record the song. Tesh conveyed that he thought the recording still sounded great but that there were some other changes he wanted to make. Although it remains unknown if the new “shredded version” of the song will be the recording NBCUniversal plays during its NBA on NBC coverage, the program took a segment to unveil the long-awaited revamp. Tesh was unable to appear live on the show and made a pre-recorded video explaining the composition.
“We want back into the studio and got me on Hammond organ and a guitar player named Andrew Synowiec, who’s pretty incredible, and the rest of my band, and I wrote an extra piece to put on the end of Roundball Rock,” Tesh explained, “and then we did what’s known as the shredded version, so get ready because here’s the first time anybody other than people in the recording studio are hearing it.”
As the program played the new edition of the song, show contributors Tony Calatayud and Luis Montejo dressed up as Tesh and his brother from the Saturday Night Live skit depicting their performance of the theme song and played along to the music. Le Batard, along with co-host Amin Elhassan, producer Mike Ryan and show contributor Izzy Gutierrez, all gave their reactions after the song played. Ryan in particular called it a “heater,” while Gutierrez explained that he nearly took his shirt off.
“This is the biggest thing we’ve ever done on our show,” Ryan said. “This harkens back to a time – this is the greatest thing.”
Le Batard, who exclaimed that he felt his eyebrows on fire during the song, elaborated on what was taking place in the studio for the audio audience. He then opined that the audience that is nostalgic will love the new version of the song, although he is not sure if everyone will feel that way.
“Dude, I’m so grateful that John Tesh decided to debut this with us,” Ryan said, “but [it was a] legitimate goosebump moment when that first guitar hit and I realized that this wasn’t a joke and we were actually going to over-deliver on something.”
Under its forthcoming media rights deal with the NBA, NBCUniversal will distribute up to 100 regular-season contests per league year, with more than half of them airing on NBC primarily on Sunday and Tuesday nights. NBCUniversal’s Peacock over-the-top streaming platform will present exclusive doubleheaders on Monday nights during the regular season. Furthermore, the company will broadcast one of two Conference Finals series in six of the 11 years, rotating with Amazon, and also acquire media rights for State Farm All-Star Saturday Night and the NBA All-Star Game.
