NBA on ABC

• 1. Introduction

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  NBA on ABC has carried professional basketball into American living rooms since the 3rd of January 1965, when a game between the Boston Celtics and Cincinnati Royals became the network's first NBA telecast. At that moment, the NBA was a league few television executives took seriously. ABC paid only $650,000 annually for the broadcast rights -- a bargain by any measure, given what rival sports properties commanded. Major League Baseball's deal with NBC was worth $16.5 million in 1969. The NFL cost CBS about $22 million that same year. Yet ABC had quietly signed on to carry a sport that was still finding its audience. What followed was not a smooth rise but a complicated, decades-long relationship: a first era that ended in failure, a long absence, and a return that would make ABC the permanent home of the NBA Finals. How did a network that once lost the rights, refused to use the sport's most famous theme song, and earned some of the worst Finals ratings in history become the league's most enduring broadcast partner? The answer runs through courtroom disputes, coaching changes in the broadcast booth, and a string of announcers -- some celebrated, some not -- who shaped how millions of fans understood the game.

• 2. A Bargain and Its Limits

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  Roone Arledge, then head of ABC Sports, first pursued the NBA not out of deep love for basketball but out of competitive strategy. His goal was live programming that could hurt CBS Sports Spectacular in the ratings and give ABC's anthology series Wide World of Sports a boost with sponsors. The deal he struck paid the NBA just $650,000 a year. For most of the 1960s, ABC only aired Sunday afternoon games, including during the playoffs. That scheduling arrangement had a hidden advantage: because deciding games might fall on weeknights, ABC did not have to televise them. In 1969, the network did air Game 7 of the Los Angeles Lakers-Boston Celtics series in prime time on a weeknight. The following season, ABC carried the entire 1970 NBA Finals, making it the first Finals series to have all games shown nationally on television.

  The broadcast team of that era included play-by-play announcers Keith Jackson and Chris Schenkel, and analysts Jack Twyman, Bob Cousy, and Bill Russell. On the 8th of April, 1967, a strike by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists forced ABC Sports producer Chuck Howard and director Chet Forte to call Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals themselves, since the regular announcing crew were union members. Curt Gowdy also handled play-by-play for half of the 1967-68 season.

  By 1969 the NBA contract had grown to $3 million. ABC's ratings for NBA games rose from a 6.0 in 1965 to an 8.2 in 1968, suggesting genuine audience growth. But the network was drawing criticism for how it covered the sport. Sports Illustrated's Frank Deford singled out ABC's treatment of the 1971 NBA Finals, arguing the network was covering basketball the same way it covered football -- and that the two games required very different approaches. He wrote that neither the announcers nor the cameras isolated the important phases of the game, and that replays were used only to second-guess officials rather than, in his words, "capture the grace and precision of the performers." He also criticized Chris Schenkel for failing to appreciate the nuances of the game.

• 3. The End of the First Era

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  Contract negotiations before the 1972-73 season exposed a fault line between the league and the network. ABC proposed a modest rights bump; team owners pushed back. A bloc of owners from larger television markets were, by the source's account, wary of television even as they acknowledged they needed it to promote their franchises. The sticking point that broke the deal was a demand that the winning network air games on Saturdays in the fall and winter -- directly competing with college football telecasts that were far more popular. ABC balked. The rights went to CBS after the 1972-73 season. ABC's last NBA Finals game aired on the 10th of May, 1973.

  To fill the Sunday time slot that the NBA had occupied, ABC counterprogrammed Wide World of Sports against CBS's new NBA coverage. The network did not disappear from basketball entirely during those years: on the 15th of December, 1973, ABC carried what is considered the first telecast of a regular-season college basketball game by a major broadcast network, a game between UCLA and North Carolina State in St. Louis, called by Keith Jackson and Bill Russell. Bill Russell also provided color commentary for ABC's coverage of basketball at the 1972 and 1976 Summer Olympics, working alongside Frank Gifford and Bill Flemming. ABC wouldn't begin broadcasting college basketball on a more regular basis until the 18th of January 1987, when Keith Jackson and Dick Vitale became the primary announcing crew.

• 4. The Return and the Booth Struggles

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  On the 22nd of January 2002, the NBA signed a six-year deal with The Walt Disney Company and Turner Sports, renewing an existing arrangement with TNT and giving ABC and ESPN the rights to air NBA games. ABC and ESPN reportedly paid an average of about $400 million per season. As part of the agreement, ABC acquired the rights to the NBA Finals, at least five other playoff games, and 15 regular-season games. Technically, ESPN pays the NBA for broadcast rights and then buys time on ABC to air select games, a structure noted in copyright tags at the end of each telecast.

  ABC courted two announcers from the departing NBA on NBC: Bob Costas and Marv Albert. Costas chose to remain at NBC. Albert signed a six-year deal with TNT. The network turned to Brad Nessler as its lead play-by-play voice. Nessler received a call from Marv Albert's agent after being hired, and later said in an interview that Albert "knows everyone" and that he planned to use him as "a valuable resource." Nessler was joined by color commentator Bill Walton and sideline reporter Michele Tafoya, but the team struggled. After the 2003 NBA Finals produced the worst ratings in Finals history, media analysts including New York Times columnist Richard Sandomir criticized Nessler for lacking rhythm and enthusiasm, for ignoring the score, and for a tendency to stammer.

  ABC replaced Nessler with longtime Monday Night Football announcer Al Michaels for the 2003-04 season. Doc Rivers, fresh off his firing as coach of the Orlando Magic after a 1-10 start, was hired as lead analyst weeks before the Christmas Day opener. Michaels and Rivers worked well together during the playoffs, and ratings improved for the 2004 Finals. But Rivers was hired as head coach of the Boston Celtics during the 2004 playoffs, ending that partnership. Michaels ultimately called only 37 NBA games for ABC. Critics, including Barry Horn of The Dallas Morning News, said Michaels was "not a basketball guy." Bill Simmons wrote during the 2005 Finals that Michaels appeared to be counting down the weeks to NFL preseason. Michaels' final departure came on the 8th of February 2006, when ESPN announced its new Monday Night Football team, explicitly stating that Michaels would not return to NBA coverage.

• 5. The Breen Era

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  Mike Breen, who became lead broadcaster in 2006, gave ABC its first consistent voice at the top since Nessler's brief tenure. He had called the Eastern Conference Finals for NBC in 2001 and 2002, and the Western Conference Finals for ESPN in 2005 -- experience that neither Nessler nor Michaels had brought to the role. Sportswriters praised Breen for his explosive delivery on game-deciding shots and for being, in their view, a basketball lifer. Before his network career, he had been calling New York Knicks games on MSG Network. His initial partner was Hubie Brown, a broadcasting legend from CBS, TBS, and TNT.

  In Game 5 of the 2023 NBA Finals, Breen called his 100th NBA Finals game, becoming the first national television play-by-play voice to reach that mark and only the third overall, following former Lakers announcer Chick Hearn and former Celtics announcer Johnny Most. That same game was the last for analysts Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson, who were both let go that summer. Doris Burke replaced them alongside Breen, becoming the first woman to call a major men's championship event as a television analyst.

  Mark Jones made history earlier in the 2022 Finals when he filled in for Breen in Game 1 after Breen tested positive for COVID-19. Jones, Mark Jackson, and Lisa Salters became the first all-Black broadcast team to cover an NBA Finals game. JJ Redick joined the lead team in early 2024, then left to become head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. For the 2024-25 season, Richard Jefferson joined Breen and Burke on a rotating basis, a arrangement that became permanent in February 2025. Ahead of the 2025-26 season, ESPN replaced Burke with Tim Legler as the lead analyst on the broadcast, while Burke remained with the network in a less prominent role.

• 6. Theme Music and Television Identity

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  After NBC's twelve-year run with the NBA ended in 2002, the departing network left behind something unexpected: a cultural attachment. Many fans associated the sport with NBC's theme music, "Roundball Rock," composed by John Tesh. When ABC took over, Tesh offered the iconic theme to the new rightsholder. ABC turned it down. The network wanted something entirely different. In its first four years, ABC used at least nine different themes. Three were traditional sports compositions; six were contemporary pieces by known artists, including Justin Timberlake, The Black Eyed Peas, Destiny's Child, Rob Thomas, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

  For the 2006-07 season, a theme called "Fast Break" that ABC had first used in 2004 was adopted by ESPN for its own NBA coverage. The integration of ABC Sports into ESPN under the ESPN on ABC branding meant both networks would share the same production elements, including music. The Pussycat Dolls performed "Right Now" as the new introduction for NBA games that season. For the 2008 season, "Nine Lives" by Def Leppard and Tim McGraw became the new intro. Maze featuring Frankie Beverly's "Before I Let Go" was added to start courtside play-by-play commentary during the 2016-17 season. Prior to the 2022-23 season, ESPN introduced a new theme composition for its NBA coverage, with a remixed version deployed during the playoffs and Finals.

• 7. Rights, Rivals, and Ratings

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  Between 2012 and 2019, the NBA lost 40 to 45 percent of its television viewership on ABC. The opening game of the 2020 Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat drew only 7.41 million viewers -- reportedly the lowest since at least 1994, when total viewership figures began to be regularly recorded. That number represented a 45 percent decline from Game 1 of the 2019 Finals between the Golden State Warriors and Toronto Raptors, which had drawn 13.51 million viewers.

  The cable-heavy structure of the NBA's television deal drew sustained criticism from media analysts and fans. Because TNT's playoff coverage was exclusive starting from the second round, fans without cable subscriptions were unable to watch most playoff games. When ABC aired a game, that broadcast was also exclusive in the local market; any ongoing game airing opposite an ABC telecast could not be shown locally, which sometimes meant games went untelecast entirely. A Houston Chronicle writer quoted by Sports Business Daily wrote that the NBA seemed to treat its sport as no more important than "one of 162 Atlanta Braves games."

  On the 24th of July 2024, the NBA renewed its agreement with ESPN and ABC for another 11 years, extending coverage through the 2035-36 season. As part of a sublicensing arrangement, ESPN and ABC gained the rights to TNT Sports' Inside the NBA beginning with the 2025-26 season. TNT Sports will continue to produce the show for ESPN and ABC. The NBA All-Star Game, which had not aired on over-the-air television since NBC's coverage of the 2002 game, is set to return to over-the-air with NBC carrying the 2026 event.