NBA on NBC vs Prime vs ESPN: Every 2025-26 Broadcast Theme Song Ranked

The 2025-26 season is the first year the NBA's national broadcast partners are split across NBC, Prime Video, and ESPN. TNT is out for the first time in 35 years. NBC is back for the first time since 2002. Prime Video is brand new to the league. Every one of those networks rolled out a theme song with their broadcast package, and the contrast between the three is one of the loudest design stories of the year. We ranked them, with bonus love for two retired themes that defined the previous era.

The 2025-26 NBA Broadcast Theme Songs Ranked

1. NBA on NBC

The absolute best of the three. NBC made the only choice that mattered when they got the NBA back: bring Roundball Rock with them. The John Tesh composition that scored every NBA broadcast in the 90s is one of the most iconic theme songs in the history of American sports television, and dropping it at the front of every NBC NBA broadcast in 2025-26 is the kind of move that wins fans before tip-off. The horns hit, the melody rises, and a generation of viewers gets a memory they did not even know they were waiting for. There is no version of this rollout that scores below an A+. NBC understood the assignment.

2. NBA on Prime

The Prime Video theme is a real attempt at building a brand new audio identity for a brand new NBA partner. It has a modern cinematic feel, builds slowly, and lands with enough impact to do its job. We actually like it. Prime is starting from zero with no nostalgia equity, and the choice to write something fresh instead of cribbing a familiar sound is the right call for a streaming-first network trying to brand itself as the home for premium NBA broadcasts. It will take time to grow on us the way Roundball Rock or the old TNT theme did, but a generation of fans will eventually remember this as the sound of NBA on Prime. Solid B for now.

3. NBA on ABC and ESPN

The current ABC and ESPN NBA theme leans hip-hop, and we get the strategic logic of trying to feel current and connect to the way the NBA culture has evolved. But the song does not carry the elegance the bigger games deserve. Conference Finals on ABC should sound like an event. Saturday Primetime on ABC should sound like the league showing off. Instead the broadcast opens with something that feels closer to a hype reel score than a marquee theme. C from us, with the asterisk that ESPN had a theme that crushed for years and could just bring it back, the same way NBC did with Roundball Rock.

What We Lost: The Two Retired Themes That Still Hit

Two of the best NBA theme songs ever produced are sitting on the shelf in 2026. The old NBA on ESPN theme that scored an entire era of regular-season and playoff broadcasts. And the NBA on TNT theme, which was the soundtrack to two decades of Eastern Conference Finals and Inside the NBA cold opens. Both deserve their flowers.

Throwback: Old NBA on ESPN

The old NBA on ESPN theme ran across the regular season and the playoffs and never missed. It carried the right amount of drama, the horns sat at exactly the right register, and the melody had the kind of structural shape you remember without trying. ESPN made the wrong call walking away from it. The 2025-26 ABC and ESPN package would have been instantly upgraded by either reintroducing this theme or building something new that lived in the same emotional pocket. NBC just proved that bringing back the old one is a winning move. ESPN should be next.

Throwback: NBA on TNT

The NBA on TNT theme is gone with TNT itself. After 35 years, Turner lost the NBA rights and the theme retired with the package. We grew up with this one. Eastern Conference Finals tipoffs, every Inside the NBA cold open, every Charles Barkley monologue led in by the brass. The TNT theme was a piece of furniture in our basketball lives, and now the room is empty. Maybe we are biased by the history. We are not pretending otherwise. A+ for what it was, what it carried, and what it is going to feel like missing it across every postseason from here on out.

The Pattern

Two of the three best theme songs in the modern NBA broadcast landscape are themes that retired or returned. The current NBA on NBC theme is a 90s composition that came back. The old NBA on ESPN theme is sitting unused while the current ABC and ESPN package leans on something that does not quite land. The NBA on TNT theme is gone forever along with Turner's run on the league. Nostalgia is winning. NBC saw it. ESPN should see it next.

Frequently Asked Questions About the 2025-26 NBA Broadcast Theme Songs

What is the new NBA on NBC theme song for 2025-26?

NBC brought back Roundball Rock, the John Tesh composition that scored every NBA on NBC broadcast from 1990 to 2002. It is the same theme NBA fans remember from the Jordan-era Bulls, the Magic Johnson Lakers, and the Hakeem Olajuwon Rockets, and NBC reinstated it as the official NBA on NBC theme for the 2025-26 season relaunch.

Who composed Roundball Rock?

John Tesh wrote and composed Roundball Rock, originally for the NBA on NBC package that launched in 1990. The theme aired across every NBC NBA broadcast through the 2001-02 season and returned with NBC's NBA package for 2025-26.

What is the NBA on Prime Video theme song?

Prime Video debuted a brand new NBA theme song for its inaugural 2025-26 broadcast package. It is a modern cinematic composition built specifically for the Prime Video NBA package, with no historical reference to previous NBA themes from any other network.

What is the current NBA on ABC and ESPN theme song?

The current ABC and ESPN NBA package uses a hip-hop-leaning theme song that opens regular-season, conference, and Finals broadcasts on the network. It is different from the orchestral NBA on ESPN theme that ran across the network's earlier NBA broadcasts.

Did the NBA on TNT theme go away?

Yes. TNT lost its NBA rights starting with the 2025-26 season, ending a 35-year partnership between the league and Turner. The NBA on TNT theme retired with the package and is no longer in active use on any NBA national broadcast.

Will the NBA Finals have a different theme song?

Yes, historically each NBA national broadcaster has used a separate NBA Finals package with its own intro and theme cue. We are covering the NBA Finals theme songs across the eras in a separate post coming soon.

What was the old NBA on ESPN theme song?

The old NBA on ESPN theme was an orchestral composition that scored the network's regular-season and playoff NBA broadcasts for years before the current hip-hop-leaning theme replaced it. The old theme is widely considered one of the best NBA broadcast themes of the modern era and is sitting unused on ESPN's shelf as of 2026.

Coming Next

We are working on a separate ranking of every NBA Finals theme song across the eras, since the Finals package historically gets its own theme distinct from the regular-season broadcast intro. NBC, ABC, ESPN, and TNT all built dedicated Finals cues over the years, and the evolution of the Finals theme is its own story.