On August 17, ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro announced that the sports channel will not air the National Anthem during professional or collegiate level football games this season. This decision is in light of NFL players kneeling during the anthem in response to racial injustice and police brutality in the United States. But ESPN isn’t the only channel to shy away from broadcasting the anthem. According to Vox, an american news website, other channels such as Fox, NBC and CBS also don’t consistently televise the anthem prior to the game. Most of these channels cite time constraints and pre-game talk shows as reason to skip the anthem in telecasts.
If this choice is to shy away from this national debate or add in more pre-game talk show time, it’s irrelevant. In the United States, our national anthem is meant to respect the country we live in, mourn all those we’ve lost in the armed forces and most importantly, it bonds citizens in times of hardship. By skirting the anthem just to avoid a confrontation or getting sidetracked by ratings is not what our country stands for. In the United States we are afforded the right to free speech and with that, we as a nation tend to have differing opinions- but there is beauty in that. We are able to discuss the issues we have in this nation and work towards fixing those problems. If we are avoiding the anthem just to save face of ratings or prevent uproar than the anthem has lost its meaning.
Yet, there are times that these channels go out of their way to show the anthem such as the anniversary of 9/11, the game after the Las Vegas shooting, and other similar events to honor our fellow Americans by supporting those affected by these tragedies. But if we only broadcast the anthem in times of crisis than the anthem just becomes a solemn reminder of all of those tragedies and it also loses its true meaning. So what is there to do? It seems like a double-edged sword: either you avoid the situation altogether or bring everything, including the debate, to the forefront.
Why not bring it all up and what comes of it is a personal decision, leave it up to the viewer to watch or avoid it. When it’s boiled down the anthem is a representation of our country’s history and how far we have come since it was penned. If we can’t honor that in its truest form than what does that say about us? Of course it might ruffle a few feathers on both sides of this politically-driven debate but that’s happened since the civil war and look where that has taken us today. So don’t cut the anthem and sweep the debate under the rug, it’s a conversation worth having. We owe it to our ancestors to honor the sacrifices they have made for us and that includes the anthem, even if the players choose to honor that sacrifice in their own way or use the platform to voice their opinions about injustice.
