[jayswin]

The NBA's also weird with anthems in that they play them loooong before tip off, with like 20-40% of the crowd in their seats. It's really odd and silly. Either play them close to tip off with most of the crowd there or don't play them at all, imo.

I actually thought the NBA didn't do anthems when I was younger as I had honestly never ever seen one on a broadcast, then one year I was watching a Raptors playoff game and turn it on to the pregame show and all of a sudden the lights went down while the players were shooting around and they all kind of stood in a line with a small smattering of fans and the anthems were sung. It threw me off, they were played with the same care and attitude that the DJ puts on warm up music in the NHL during their warm up before the final ice cleaning, haha.