"Roundball Rock" Composer John Tesh

SI Media With Jimmy Traina

Sports Illustrated

Sports

4.7 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2025

⏱️ 84 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Episode 552 of "SI Media With Jimmy Traina" features a conversation with the composer of NBC's NBA theme song, "Roundball Rock," John Tesh.

Tesh talks about the recent announcement from NBC that "Roundball Rock" will return as the the network's theme song for the NBA for the next 11 years, what the negotiations were like with NBC, the popularity of the song, how the song got created and landed on NBC, getting spoofed on "Saturday Night Live" and why people weren't satisfied with Fox using the song on its college basketball coverage.

Tesh also discusses what it was like to host "Entertainment Tonight" for 10 years, becoming a reporter at CBS's New York affiliate at just 22 years old, what it was like to date Oprah Winfrey in the '70s and much more.

Following Tesh, Sal Licata from WFAN radio and SNY TV in New York joins Jimmy for their weekly "Traina Thoughts" segment. This week, they discuss Sal's Mother's Day dilemma, the NBA playoffs, another wrestler going off on Hulk Hogan and Roku airing MLB games. Jimmy also reads Apple reviews from April for "SI Media With Jimmy Traina."

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Transcript

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1:04.9	Welcome everyone to SI Media with Jimmy Train and thank you so much for listening.
1:15.5	We did not use the usual theme song this week.
1:18.0	That was Round Ball Rock, which is the theme song of the NBA on NBC, which officially comes back next season.
1:25.8	NBC announced that on Sunday.
1:27.9	And in honor of the big news, this week's guest is John Tesh, the composer of that theme song,
1:36.4	the NBA on NBC.
1:39.1	John was tremendous.
1:40.9	Explain the history of the song, negotiating with NBC for the rights to the song,
	...

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