Zac Brown will play a big role in the UFC fight taking place on the White House lawn this summer.
In case you haven’t heard, the United States of America is officially turning 250 years old in a couple of months. The 4th of July is always special, but this year’s edition will especially be so. President Donald Trump has made an effort to make the celebration stretch throughout the entire year, which is why America250 has had events sprinkled throughout since last July.
The year-long celebration will culminate with a massive fair on the ground of the National Mall in Washington D.C., which is set to feature exhibits from all 50 states. Oh, and the iconic White House will partner with the UFC to host a fight night on the lawn on June 14. Because nothing screams America more than having some people fight in the yard outside of a house.
President Trump is close friends with UFC CEO Dana White, and often attends UFC fights in person. So the pairing wasn’t surprising by any means. The location of the UFC event – the South Lawn of the White House – is going to cause some logistical issues (how do you get fans in and out of one of the safest places on the planet), but regardless, it’ll be a very unique spectacle.
And country music star Zac Brown (of the Zac Brown Band) will be a part of the evening’s schedule. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, UFC CEO Dana White revealed that the “Chicken Fried” singer will be a) playing during the night and b) will have the honors of performing “The Star Spangled Banner,” which is not normally done at UFC events:
“Zac Brown is going to be playing that night, and for the first time in a long time, he will be doing the national anthem. We don’t do the national anthem. One of the things that drives me crazy with boxing is they gotta sing two national anthems and all this stuff before the fight starts. We are an international business.
We have people from everywhere, so we are going to end up singing two national anthems and not even from this country. The whole world is watching us. We are in over a billion homes worldwide, so I don’t do it. This will be the first time in a long time since like double-digits, UFC double-digits, that we have done the national anthem and Zac Brown will be singing it.”
That’s a big honor for Zac Brown.
I can already hear the masses getting upset and saying that Brown is picking a side politically by playing at the event and performing the national anthem. In reality, he’s just going to be a part of an Ultimate Fighting Championship event that’s playing a role in the America250 celebration. As White said in the interview above, he doesn’t view this as a political event.
Instead, it’s the 250th birthday of America… and wouldn’t it be even more problematic if Zac Brown didn’t want to be a part of that?
