NBA On ABC - Music

Music

For more details on ABC's NBA music selections, see National_Basketball_Association_music#ABC_Sports.

After the 1990s (when the NBA arguably reached its highest point in terms of popularity) many hardcore and casual fans began to associate the league with NBC, and more accurately, the network's theme music, Roundball Rock. Whereas NBC used Roundball Rock for all twelve years of its coverage, ABC has used at least nine themes in its first four years. Three of the themes were traditional sports themes, while six of them (We Got Hoops by Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Can't Get Enough by Justin Timberlake, Let's Get It Started by The Black Eyed Peas, Lose My Breath by Destiny's Child, This Is How A Heart Breaks by Rob Thomas and Runnin' Down a Dream by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) were contemporary pieces by known artists.

For the 2006-07 NBA season, ESPN began using "Fast Break", ABC's NBA theme since 2004, as its theme. Because of the move to ESPN on ABC (which calls for all sporting events on ABC to have the same production elements as games on ESPN), this means that games on ABC will have the same theme music from previous years.

In addition, ABC selected all female pop group The Pussycat Dolls to perform "Right Now" as the new introduction for NBA games.

For the 2008 season, "Nine Lives" by Def Leppard and Tim McGraw was used as ABC's new introductory song on their games. During the playoffs, ESPN also used the song prior to the start of the game.

For the 2012 NBA Playoffs, the revival version of the 1972-73 theme will have the intro music with features of the current NBA players from 2007, 2009 etc., going back from the previous year.