Short answers, pulled from the story.
NBA on ABC first aired NBA games on the 3rd of January 1965, with a game between the Boston Celtics and Cincinnati Royals. ABC signed its initial deal with the NBA in 1964, paying $650,000 annually for broadcast rights.
ABC lost the NBA broadcast rights to CBS after the 1972-73 season. Contract negotiations broke down over a demand from team owners that the network air NBA games on Saturdays in the fall, competing directly with college football. ABC refused, and the final game of its first era aired on the 10th of May 1973.
ABC and ESPN reportedly paid an average of about $400 million per season under the six-year deal signed on the 22nd of January 2002, with The Walt Disney Company and Turner Sports. Technically, ESPN pays the NBA for the rights and buys time on ABC to air select games.
Mike Breen became the first national television play-by-play voice to call 100 NBA Finals games, reaching that milestone in Game 5 of the 2023 NBA Finals. He is the third announcer overall to reach the mark, following former Lakers announcer Chick Hearn and former Celtics announcer Johnny Most.
After ABC took over NBA coverage from NBC in 2002, composer John Tesh offered ABC the rights to use Roundball Rock, the theme associated with NBA on NBC. ABC declined because it wanted a completely different sound. In its first four years, ABC used at least nine different themes, including contemporary pieces by Justin Timberlake, The Black Eyed Peas, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
The opening game of the 2020 NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat drew only 7.41 million viewers, reportedly the lowest Finals viewership since at least 1994. That figure represented a 45 percent decline from Game 1 of the 2019 Finals between the Golden State Warriors and Toronto Raptors, which had 13.51 million viewers.