As NBC gets ready to re-launch its NBA coverage in October 2025, one burning question lingers with a lot of fans. Will “Roundball Rock” be part of the coverage? John Tesh, the song’s composer, addressed that question on his podcast on Thursday.
Fans of “Roundball Rock” — of which there are many — got some bad news on Thursday when CNBC’s Alex Sherman said “I hate to break this to you and the audience but there is no deal — yet. Even though NBC Sports said the song’s coming back, they’re still in negotiations with John Tesh.”
On the John Tesh Podcast with Gib Gerard, the two hosts addressed that report.
“Is that true? About them not having it and making the announcement?” Gerard asked Tesh, who quickly confirmed that it was.
“Yeah,” he said. “What happened was, right before the Olympics, I get a call from the music department at NBC and they say, ‘Hey, we just found out that it’s official. We got the rights to the NBA for 11 years. It’s back. And it begins in October of 2025. And we want to say that we’re negotiating with you and your publishing company. We’re gonna bring Roundball Rock back. We want to put that in the press release because we know that will be one of the big questions.'”
“As well it should be,” Gerard said. He then explained why. “You can’t say this but I can say this. As a viewer of basketball, how exciting it is to have the theme come back and what an exciting moment it will be. Because I have this group of guys that I grew up with and we watch sports together and we text every day about the sports that we watch. When I hear the theme associated with a basketball broadcast, it brings me right back to that feeling of watching sports with my friends and brings me to this heyday of the NBA. So I do, I love that about it. And regardless of any connection I have to it, it would have been my question when NBC got the NBA back.”
“I appreciate it,” Tesh said.
“So when I said this,” he continued. “I said, ‘You know you don’t have the rights to the song?’ He said, ‘Yeah. But we want to put in the press release that we’re negotiating with you and your publishing company.’ I said ‘Ah, I don’t think that’s a great idea.’ And then he said, ‘Well. We would just hope that you would negotiate in good faith.’ I said, ‘I guess you’re gonna do what you want to do.’ And he said ‘That’s what the folks here want to do.'”
Tesh then recalled reading the press release about the NBA returning to NBC. When he read it, something looked off.
“The press release actually said, basically, ‘We have the rights to “Roundball Rock,”‘ Tesh said. “And I’m reading this thing, I’m going, ‘What?’ So I called him back up and said, ‘Hey, you said you were gonna say you were negotiating with us in good faith.’ He said, ‘Yeah, we got out a little ahead of our skis?’ I said, ‘Ahead of your skis?’ He said, ‘We hope that you’ll negotiate in good faith and I hope that you won’t talk to the press about this’ because what I said was, ‘I’m gonna get a whole bunch of phone calls now, from all these podcasters.’…He said, ‘Can you just wait until everybody gets back from the Olympics, and then we’ll start negotiations.'”
He also recalled both his publicist and agent saying “John, you’ve got to get ahead of this.”
“And I realized that if I quote/unquote got ahead of it and said, ‘Wait, they don’t have the rights’ that I would have destroyed all that great press that NBC was getting. And I worked for NBC. I did the ’92 Olympic Games as an announcer and also the ’96. I know all the guys there. And I thought, ‘Oh, gosh.’ It felt like I was frozen in place. And then when it came time to negotiate, it was crickets for quite a long time. And I’m thinking, ‘OK, I just got cut off at the knees.'”
Tesh and Gerard then listened to more clips from Squawk Box and responded to them.
The pair also talked about the song’s significance and how, should it return with the NBA on NBC, it would give the stars of this era a stronger connection to Michael Jordan and other NBA legends who had “Roundball Rock” as a soundtrack to so much of their careers.
“I think everybody is really excited about the idea of this theme being back on NBC,” Gerard said. “We want that to happen. I don’t think we’ve gotten an offer yet. I don’t think we’ve gotten an opportunity — I say we, it’s really you. I don’t think you’ve gotten an offer yet. I don’t think you’ve had an opportunity to finish this deal with NBC.”
Tesh then called “Roundball Rock” a legacy song.
“You can see it, if you just go on — like I said — in June and July of 2024 — 13.1 billion impressions from people,” Tesh said. “When I saw that, I was like this is the most ridiculous thing ever. For me, business-wise, I’ve seen what the song is worth. But also, I love NBC.
“Pretty much right now, with the guys at NBC that make all these decisions, I’m hearing crickets. But I’m ready. And the song is ready.”
[John Tesh Podcast with Gib Gerard: John Tesh on YouTube]
