“Roundball Rock” Is Back: John Tesh Unveils New Version of Iconic NBA Theme Song

Posted by author August 8, 2024 NBA

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There’s officially a new version of “Roundball Rock,” the iconic theme song for the NBA on NBC.

Composer John Tesh debuted the new version of the song (he calls it the “shredded version”) Thursday morning. Tesh appeared via a pre-recorded video on The Dan Le Batard Show, where he introduced the new version of the song.

“We went back into the studio and got me on Hammond organ and a guitar player named Andrew Synowiec, which was pretty incredible, and the rest of my band,” Tesh said. “I wrote an extra piece to put on the end of Roundball Rock, and then we did what’s known as the shredded version. So get ready, because here’s the first time anybody other than the people in the recording studio are hearing it.”

Watch, er, listen:

Tesh first teased a potential revival of “Roundball Rock” back in May on Le Batard’s show, when it became clear that NBC Sports was favored to regain rights to the NBA. He said he had an orchestra on hold and would likely be going to Nashville to record a new version of the song.

NBC, of course, officially regained NBA rights last month, cutting a decade-long deal that will pay the league about $2.5 billion per year. The company announced in conjunction with the rights that it had cut a deal with Tesh to bring back the theme song, which was a staple of NBC’s basketball coverage from 1990-2002.

The NBA deals with NBC, Disney and Amazon will reshape the TV business, leading to far more sports hours on broadcast TV, with entertainment programming expected to be cut down. At least there will be some great music while it happens though.