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Mark Cuban Has No Issues With Playing The National Anthem

Photo by Gage Skidmore

The state of Texas recently passed a law called the “Star Spangled Banner Protection Act,” which, in effect last week, requiring professional teams in the state who take public funds to play the national anthem. If not, those teams could face heavy fines.

Course many started pointing fingers at Dallas Mavericks Governor Mark Cuban.

Cuban decided to stop playing the national anthem in pre-game ceremonies at the beginning of the 2020-2021 season. The news was made public after an article was published by The Athletic revealing that the Dallas Mavericks were not playing the national anthem before home games and did not intend to move forward.

“It was my decision, and I made it in November [2020],” Cuban told Marc Stein of the NYT.

After Cuban actions were made public, the NBA immediately issued a response, “With NBA teams now in the process of welcoming fans back into their arenas, all teams will play the national anthem in keeping with longstanding league policy,” said NBA Chief Communications Officer Mike Bass.

Cuban decided to stop playing the national anthem in pre-game ceremonies at the beginning of the 2020-2021 season. The news was made public after an article was published by The Athletic revealing that the Dallas Mavericks were not playing the national anthem before home games and did not intend to move forward.

“It was my decision, and I made it in November [2020],” Cuban told Marc Stein of the NYT.

After Cuban actions were made public, the NBA immediately issued a response, “With NBA teams now in the process of welcoming fans back into their arenas, all teams will play the national anthem in keeping with longstanding league policy,” said NBA Chief Communications Officer Mike Bass.

Cuban also issued an official statement, “We respect and always have respected the passion people have for the anthem and our country. I have always stood for the anthem with the hand over my heart — no matter where I hear it played. But we also hear the voices of those who do not feel the anthem represents them. We feel they also need to be respected and heard because they have not been heard. The hope is that those who feel passionate about the anthem being played will be just as passionate in listening to those who do not feel it represents them.”

A week later, Cuban sat down with One37pm and shared his stance did not change on the National Anthem.

“Nothing has changed. There are a couple of things, and I am a national anthem guy. That is just the way I was raised, and it is a habit more than anything else. And over time, I have learned that not everyone looks at the national anthem the way I do. When that starts happening, you start doing your homework, and you read about Francis Scott Key, the second, third, and fourth verses; and, understandably, there is a reference to free men, slaves, and you can see how it makes people uncomfortable. With that being said, people have habits, and for me, for 20 years with the Mavs, I would be out there [on the floor] or even in my office bunker; I would stand and put my hand over my heart. During the anthem the stands were not full, people walked around on the concourse, and I did see their response to the anthem; some stopped, but most didn’t. And it is not important to them that they are on time for it. It is not important to stop on the concourse. For some, they will not stop and put a beer down, while some won’t even take their hats off. That always bothered me; if this was so important to us, and it is to me. My dad was military and fought in two wars, and was wounded,” said Cuban.

“My uncle was in the Air Force and fought in two wars. If it was so important, then why do we disrespect it like that? It always bothered me, and then over the last couple of years, The anthem has gotten weaponized, and certain people felt their form of patriotism was the only form of patriotism. If you didn’t do it their way, you are not patriotic, and you didn’t love this country, and to me, that was wrong. There is no one way to love this country other than the definition of liberty.”

Cuban continued, “You get to love this country or not. I truly believe 99.99 percent love this country; there are no ifs and about it. Some don’t, but 99.99 percent do. There are people now that feel like their way of honoring our amazing country is the only way. They try to weaponize it, and we saw that with our players. So, they had come out of the bubble where many messages and emotions were going into the season. I was like, one: people don’t fully respect it initially, which really bothered me; two: everybody watched what people did with the anthem in those first couple of games; three: we weren’t going to have fans, so let’s see what happens if we didn’t play it. That is actually what I did, and after the lineup, I went over to our PR guy Scooter and said, “Has anybody said anything? Not a word. “Did you tell the other team  and their media what was going on?” I told everybody, not a word, and it continued until the 13th game. Finally, a reporter said something, and then that’s when everybody found out. It was never going to be a situation where we weren’t going to play the anthem. It wasn’t a situation where I was against playing it. It was more of a situation where let’s see what happens.

The Mavericks host an event called Seats for Soldiers every year except for Covid. We celebrate more than 100 wounded service members from Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio and veterans from the Adaptive Training Foundation and reserve troops from the Dallas/Fort Worth area.”

According to Deadline, Cuban shared that he will comply with the Law.

What do you think?

Written by Landon Buford

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