The vast majority of players in the N.F.L., N.B.A. and W.N.B.A. are Black.
States like Texas and Wisconsin are considering bills that would require that the national anthem be played before any sporting event held at sites financed in part by taxpayer money.
Representative Tony Kurtz, a Republican and a military veteran, is one of the assembly members who proposed the bill in Wisconsin after Cuban did not play the anthem in Dallas. In May, the bill passed the State Assembly with a bipartisan vote, 74-22.
“I was called a fascist, a Nazi, just a whole bunch of things,” Kurtz said. “I just believe in our country. We are one nation. At the end of the day, we all still got to get along. I think that’s why it resonates so much with sports and why it resonates so much after 9/11. We needed unity in this country.”
Representative Don Vruwink, a Democrat, voted in the bill’s favor. But Vruwink, a longtime high school and youth sports coach, questioned the bill’s practicality, saying that it could not be enforced and that he worried it diluted the spirit of the anthem.
“This bill wasn’t about the logistics,” Vruwink said. “It was about a culture war, in my mind. Forcing people to say, is it good or bad, or whatever, which is unfortunate.”
Though this tension plays out at arenas, and causes fiery debates from the court to the halls of Congress, several sports commissioners, like Silver, still see a role for patriotic displays at sporting events.
“Crisis brings out the best and worst in people and companies,” said Don Garber, Major League Soccer’s commissioner, adding: “I really believe that even during the most polarizing times, sports seems to cut through all of that when it needs to most, and I continue to believe that our industry will continue to do so.”