Why do we have to have the Star Spangled Banner or anything played before a game? Why can’t they just come out and play?

I'm taking a knee. Ron

It is out of respect and love of our country that our National Anthem is played before a sporting event. When an American hockey team plays against a Canadian team, the Canadian National Anthem is also played. If you object to listening to our national anthem, mute your TV until the game begins.

I’m laughing. Yesterday I saw a meme on Facebook complaining that NASCAR would no longer begin each race with the national anthem and a prayer. I love the TV series “Friday Night Lights”. In that show, though, the team had a group prayer in the locker room before every game, led by the coach. I remember the scene in the great World War II movie “Catch—22” where Buck Henry asks the “padre” to offer “a nice snappy prayer” before a bombing mission, and when it drags on, Colonel Cathcart butts in and asks God for nice tight bombing patterns that will destroy the enemy. I remember the old Bob Dylan song “With God on Or Side.”

Do they play the “National Anthem” and “Pledge of Allegiance” prior to PGA Tournaments?

That is a hard song to sing. But, so is the Star Bangled Banner, which by the way has only been our national anthem since1931.
I vote for America the Beautiful!

You are so spot on!! Everything you said is so true and exactly how I feel. Taking down statues and singing songs that are for one group are only going to divide us more than we already are. Sad that this country has come to this fork in the road.

Here is the story behind the Star Spangled Banner. It is the how and why it was written.

Short History of The Star Spangled Banner | American Battlefield Trust

Here is the third verse by the way, which is never sung.

It does have the word slave in it but it doesn't appear to me to be talking about African slaves specifically.

Will we be banning the Bible next because of the references to slaves?

I think that what some are missing here is that the US Flag was the flag of the north in the Civil War. It's the symbol of those who fought to end slavery.

I don't know how you can fight to get rid of the Stars and Bars and also the Star Spangled Banner?

Very nice song m, but not sure I need to hear it before NFL game. They stoped showing national anthem on TV last year. So are we going to see this instead this year. I will stand for national anthem not the black national anthem. That might be cultural appropriation!

My guess is the players will stand for the black national anthem and then kneel for America's national anthem.

Remember, Wikipedia is an on line collection of posts that have been compiled.
The Merrimack-Webster Dictionary defines as ......Definition of national anthem
: a song that praises a particular country and that is officially accepted as the country's song.
That is The Star Spangled Banner 🇺🇸

Prefer to watch old movies or rerun TV shows than paying to watch millionaire “oppressed people” grandstand their PC public stance.

No more NFL NBA or paid athlete college games for me.

Anything white has to go. Everything.

They've mixed since the beginning of time. Most notibly Jesse Owens and Hitler, Jackie Robinson, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, Muhammad Ali, the 1980 US Hockey team, Olympic boycotts, Colin Kaepernick knealing, NBA players protesting the anthem, Shawn Green not playing baseball on Yom Kippur, the Phoenix Suns honoring Hispanic heritage after Arizona enacted strict immigration law, NBA players wearing hoodie for Trayvon Martin, the University of Missouri football team having a hunger strike to force the university president to resign over racist environment on campus, WNBA/NBA playeRS wearingn"I can't breathe" shirts.

It goes on and on and on. They've always intersected and always will. Either your point is weak and invalid or you've never paid attention and I'm not sure which is worse.