The opening words to the national anthem are familiar to anyone who watches or attends a sporting event in the United States. But why is the national anthem played at games to begin with? Depending on one’s point of view, you can blame – or thank – World War I for being the catalyst for this tradition.

“The Star-Spangled Banner” began its life as a poem by Francis Scott Key about seeing the flag flying over Fort McHenry after it was bombarded by British troops in 1814. Long before it became the official US national anthem in 1931, the song was recognized for its ability to boost patriotism.

But not everyone believes that the song should be the national anthem or that it represents all American citizens. Indeed, “The Star-Spangled Banner” has been part of many protests. Furthermore, not every country plays their national anthem before every sporting event, so why does the United States? Well, the answer is deeply rooted in politics, war, and profits.

The Earliest Known Record Of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ Being Played At A Sporting Event Was In 1862
While the first professional baseball game wasn’t played until 1869, and the National and American Leagues weren’t founded until 1876 and 1901, respectively, people had played amateur baseball for years before these events. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that the first known record of “The Star-Spangled Banner” being played at any sporting event in the United States came decades before the practice became an actual tradition.

According to John Thorn, the official historian for Major League Baseball (MLB), it was first played at the opening game at William Cammeyer’s Union Grounds park in Brooklyn on May 15, 1862.

“They hire a band because it’s a big celebration,” anthem expert and university musicology professor Mark Clague explained to NPR in 2018. “When you have live music in 1862, during the Civil War, you’re going to play patriotic songs. So they play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ sort of coincidentally. It’s not part of a ritual; [it’s] not played to start the game.”

The first time the song was played at any major-league team’s Opening Day, meanwhile, was in Philadelphia on April 22, 1897.

The Anthem Boosted Morale During Game 1 Of The 1918 World Series
Only around 10,000 fans reportedly showed up for Game 1 of the 1918 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs, and they weren’t exactly in a cheery mood.

And why should they have been? By September 5, 1918, 100,000 of US soldiers had been slain in WWI since entering the conflict 17 months earlier. Furthermore, MLB players were now being drafted to fill the need for more soldiers. While on the home front, acts of domestic terrorism, like a September 4 blast that took the lives of 30 people as it ripped through the Chicago Federal Building, added to the general misery.

A break in the gloom came in the middle of the seventh inning. It was common practice at the time for military bands to play at games. When the band struck up “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Red Sox third baseman Fred Thomas, who was on leave from the Navy, turned towards the flag and saluted while his teammates stood with their hands over their hearts.

“First the song was taken up by a few [fans], then others joined, and when the final notes came, a great volume of melody rolled across the field,” The New York Times reported. “It was at the very end that the onlookers exploded into thunderous applause and rent the air with a cheer that marked the highest point of the day’s enthusiasm.”

Reportedly, September 5, 1918, wasn’t the first time “The Star-Spangled Banner” had been performed at a World Series game. But the song struck a nerve with people that day, spawning a new tradition.

Playing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ Became More Common Among Other Teams In Baseball After 1918
The 1918 World Series moved to Boston after three games. While the Cubs had “The Star-Spangled Banner” played during the seventh inning stretch, the Red Sox upped the ante by making the anthem part of the pre-game ceremonies. They also gave free tickets to wounded veterans, who were introduced to the crowd during the playing of the song prior to Game 6 of the series. The Chicago Tribune reported, “[The soldiers’] entrance on crutches supported by their comrades evoked louder cheers than anything the athletes did on the diamond.”

The enthusiastic fan response to “The Star-Spangled Banner” – and the sharp increase in attendance – didn’t go unnoticed by other MLB teams. Over the next few years it became standard practice for the song to be played on Opening Day, during World Series games, and at contests played on holidays. Harry Frazee, the owner of the Boston Red Sox, was so impressed with the fans’ response to the anthem during the 1918 World Series that he ordered the club to have it performed at every home game beginning the following season. Hiring a band to perform the anthem was often cost prohibitive, but as teams installed better public address systems, recordings of the song started to be used in place of a live performance. This advance in technology allowed “The Star-Spangled Banner” to be heard more and more often at MLB games in the years between WWI and World War II.

During WWII, The Anthem Was Again Used At Sporting Events To Inspire Patriotism
It is no coincidence that the tradition of playing the anthem before every MLB game really began with the 1942 season. After all, the United States had entered WWII just a few months earlier, and the war effort needed support from American citizens. Playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at games appealed to the fans’ patriotism, just as it had done back in 1918.

“National anthems are political,” Marc Ferris, the author of Star-Spangled Banner: The Unlikely Story of America’s National Anthem, told USA Today in 2017. He continued, “Sports are a kind of bloodless warfare. A sort of war without death.”

The author said that, unlike many other places, the United States is a patriotic country and playing the national anthem was a way to show that patriotism.

Of course, sporting events weren’t the only places where the anthem could be heard during WWII. “The anthem was heard everywhere,” Ferris stated. “Before the opera, before the movies, before the theater.”

But while it was rare to hear “The Star-Spangled Banner” played prior to a movie or an opera once WWII came to an end in 1945, the majority of sports teams either continued or adopted the practice of playing it before games.

After WWII, NFL Commissioner Elmer Layden Ordered The Anthem To Be Played At All Games
Elmer Layden first gained football fame in the 1920s as a member of Notre Dame’s famed “Four Horsemen” backfield. In 1941, he became the commissioner of the National Football League (NFL).

At the end of WWII, Layden ordered NFL teams to start playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at their games. He told The New York Times:

The playing of the national anthem should be as much a part of every game as the kickoff. We must not drop it simply because the war is over. We should never forget what it stands for.

Two decades later, as the Vietnam War raged on, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle started enforcing a policy that stated that players had to stand at attention during the anthem, with their helmets tucked under their arms. The policy mandated that the players could not talk, chew gum, or move their feet while “The Star-Spangled Banner” was being performed.

Playing The Anthem Also Became The Norm Among Other Sports After WWII
When the National Hockey League (NHL) was founded in 1917, it had just four teams, all located in Canada. As of 2020, it comprises 31 teams, 24 of which are in the United States. Despite the location of the clubs, only 26.1% of the players who participated in the 2019-20 season were born in the United States. In fact, 17 countries are represented, with Canadian-born players (42.6%) making up the largest portion.

Despite this, the NHL mandated back in 1946 that “The Star-Spangled Banner” be played before games “as a show of patriotism.” That rule is still on the books today, although since the 1970s the league has allowed “God Bless America” to be used as a substitute. And of course, in any contest between two of the Canadian-based franchises, the Canadian national anthem (“O Canada”) is substituted.

Not only did the NFL and NHL both begin regularly playing the anthem before its games in 1946, so did the newly formed National Basketball Association (NBA). Tim Frank, a spokesman for the NBA, told The New York Times in 2016 that the playing of the anthem before the league’s games is done “in honor of the United States and those who have sacrificed to protect it.”

The Baltimore Orioles Tried To Stop Playing The National Anthem Before Games, But They Were Met With Public Outcry
When the St. Louis Browns relocated to Baltimore prior to the 1954 season, they named Arthur Ehlers the team’s general manager. Ehlers, a WWI veteran, announced that “The Star-Spangled Banner” wouldn’t be played before every home contest.

His reasoning was that repeatedly playing the anthem at sporting events “tends to cheapen the song and lessens the thrill of response.” He claimed that “crowds at stadiums and other sports arenas have a way of continuing to laugh and talk and move about while the anthem is being played” – all actions that Ehlers found distasteful.

His plan was to just play “The Star-Spangled Banner” on special occasions such as Memorial Day, when the team planned to showcase veterans’ groups, a color guard, and a drum and bugle corps.

But the public outcry to Ehlers’s announcement was so strong that the Baltimore City Council ended up unanimously passing a resolution that encouraged the playing of the anthem before every game. Within one month, Ehlers succumbed to the pressure and the Orioles started playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at every home game.

The Anthem Became So Synonymous With Sports People Complained If It Wasn’t Played
For their Opening Day in 1966, the Chicago White Sox decided to substitute “God Bless America” for the national anthem. Ed Short, the team’s general manager, explained that “‘God Bless America’ is a patriotic song and we think perhaps it’s better tailored for fan participation.”

The team took a poll to decide what song they should play, and “The Star-Spangled Banner” received the most votes. Irving Berlin wrote the White Sox urging them to resume playing the anthem, but it was militant patriots who wanted the club to honor the troops fighting in Vietnam who convinced the team to resume playing the anthem by the end of May.

The Chicago Cubs had stopped playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” before every game after WWII ended. Team owner Philip K. Wrigley believed that the anthem “shouldn’t be cheapened by routine renditions in athletic arenas.” But in 1967 as the Vietnam War escalated, the Cubs resumed playing the anthem before every game.

In 1972, Kansas City Royals’ owner Ewing Kauffman cited the “apathetic attitude of many fans during the song” for his decision to only play the anthem on Sundays and holidays. But the public opposition to this decision was so great that it only took two games before the club resumed playing the anthem before every contest.

Decades later (in 2018), the crowd first booed and then started singing the national anthem a cappella after it was announced that it wouldn’t be played at a high school baseball game in Fresno, CA.

Various teams through the years have experimented with playing songs like “God Bless America” or “America the Beautiful” instead of the national anthem, with mixed results. But as Bernie Landers, former director of promotions for the New York Yankees, once said, “It doesn’t always have to be the anthem. But you have to be careful. You don’t mess with the ‘Banner.’ It gets people very upset.”

The MLS Believed It Had No Other Choice Than To Play The Anthem Before Its Games
Because of the precedent set by the other major American professional sports leagues, by the time Major League Soccer (MLS) was formed in 1996, it felt that it had no other choice than to play “The Star-Spangled Banner” at its games.

As MLS spokesman Dan Courtemanche told The New York Times, an actual rule was put into place regarding the anthem because “at this point [1996], it has become part of the tradition of playing a sporting event in America.”

The Anthem Represented The Country’s Strength In The Wake Of 9/11
On September 11, 2001, the world watched as terrorists targeted the United States. Along with the rest of the country, the sports world paused in the wake of the assault. But sports soon started up again, and in the days and weeks to follow, these games became a way to show the world that America wouldn’t be defeated, and the country remained strong and united. Sporting events gave people a place to grieve and helped the country start to heal. And in the following weeks, the anthem played a major part in national patriotism.

The New York Giants’ first game after the event was in Kansas City, which was normally a hostile venue for visitors. But as former Giants running back Tiki Barber told CBS This Morning: Saturday in 2018, “The first thing we saw was signs saying, ‘KC loves NYC.’ The fans wanted to reach down and shake our hands and the national anthem played.”

Barber underlined the kind of impact “The Star-Spangled Banner” likely had on many Americans in the first days and weeks after 9/11 when he admitted, “I’ve stood for the national anthem for years going back to when I was a kid. But I heard it. I think I truly heard it for the first time.”

Some Criticism Claims The Anthem Has Always Been A Marketing Tool For American Sports
Some have suggested that the NFL has continued to have “The Star-Spangled Banner” played before games not because the league genuinely wants to honor the country, but rather because league and team executives see it as a way of keeping fans invested in the NFL. Patriotism, it seems, is a great marketing tool.

But even if that were true, tying sports and patriotism together isn’t a one-way street. In 2016, an oversight report released by Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain of Arizona threw light on the idea of “paid patriotism.” The report revealed that since 2012, the Department of Defense had spent $53 million in taxpayers’ money on sports-related marketing and advertising contracts, with more than $9 million going to the five major US leagues (the MLB, MLS, NBA, NFL, and NHL).

Although some of the contracts were for legitimate marketing such as signage at venues, the two senators discovered that 72 of the 122 contracts they uncovered involved payments for less-than-genuine patriotic tributes, including “military appreciation” nights or inviting members of the military to sing the national anthem.

After the report was released, the Department of Defense banned “paid patriotism,” and the NFL told its teams to stop taking money for any patriotic salutes they might conduct (it’s unclear if the other leagues issued similar instructions).

But paid or not, sports teams using patriotism as a marketing tool is not a recent concept. Way back in 1918, when the Cubs and Red Sox decided to play “The Star-Spangled Banner” and honor veterans at those World Series games, they didn’t do so just to build support for WWI, they were trying to increase attendance. This would have definitely fallen under the concept of “marketing,” even if it didn’t involve spending taxpayers’ money.

European Sports Teams Are Often More Diverse Than American Ones
The tradition of playing of a country’s national anthem prior to a domestic sporting event does not really exist in Europe.

One reason for this is that teams in Europe tend to be more diverse than American teams. For example, there were players from 14 different countries on the Manchester United football (soccer) team’s 33-man roster in 2020, while there were players from six different countries on the Los Angeles Dodgers’ (MLB) 28-man roster. And in 2017, only one of every 39 active players in NFL had been born outside of the United States.

Eric Liu, a former speechwriter and advisor to President Bill Clinton, has another theory as to why US teams are among the few to play their country’s anthem before games. Unlike most countries, Liu explained to The New York Times, the United States wasn’t founded on a common platform of religion or ancestry. Instead, it is a creedal society, and in creedal societies, rituals like a national anthem are more important to the citizens.

Around The World, Anthems Are Typically Played Only Before Games Between Two Countries
When Roy Hodgson was appointed the manager of England’s national football (soccer) team in 2012, he instituted a rule about the players and coaches singing along to “God Save the Queen” at international matches, but this policy was not always adhered to. Prior to the start of the World Cup play in 2014, Hodgson reiterated:

You very rarely play an international match against opponents who haven’t got their hands on their hearts and singing their anthem as loud as they can. We’ve made a decision that’s what we’re going to do, too… We are proud to be England players and, in my case, England manager. So when the national anthem comes up it’s an obvious one for me that we sing it. Let’s do what every other team does.

This might be confusing when teams that have the same national anthem – such as Greece and Cyprus – play each other. And problems can occur when a country’s anthem has the same melody as the anthem of a country that the opposing team’s fans may not exactly like. This happened in 2010 when Scottish fans booed the national anthem of Liechtenstein, which just happens to have the same melody as England’s anthem.