National anthems at major sporting events tend to be a bit of a mixed bag. Most of them wind up being fairly forgettable. Occasionally, a musician will belt out a truly memorable rendition such as Whitney Houston's performance at Super Bowl XXV. Unfortunately, the NBA All-Star Game has been the recipient of some of the more infamous versions in the history of professional sports.
In 2018, Fergie delivered a national anthem that is remembered poorly to this day, so much so that she actually apologized for it the next day. Sunday's performance wasn't nearly as bad, but Chaka Khan's rendition seems destined to land in the history books as one of the worst the All-Star Game has ever seen.
The song as a whole came out to two minutes and 22 seconds. As a point of reference, the over/under prop for the Super Bowl national anthem, which is based on how long the song usually takes as measured by Las Vegas, was one minute and 55 seconds.
While some occasional elongation never hurts, this version went way over the top. The word "the" was designed to be short. That's why it has only three letters. Common's well-received pregame introductions will drown out most of the noise surrounding this rendition of the national anthem, but in the annals of anthem history, this one will fall pretty close to the bottom.
