This Anthem Controversy Is Not What You'd Expect

One of the weirder Super Bowl "prop bets" that takes place is how long the national anthem will last. On Sunday, Gladys Knight's version managed to create controversy, reports the Daily News. The common bet was whether she'd go over 1:50, and Knight sang for 2 minutes and 1 second. Easy call? Not so much. She sang the final word, "brave," more than once, and because of a similar controversy with Christina Aguilera's version in 2011, most betting sites now have a rule that says the official time ends after the first "brave."

As USA Today notes, for example, the offshore site BetOnline.ag put her official time at 1:49.5. That's because its rules stipulate that the anthem time is “from moment she starts singing until the note ‘brave’ ends for first time.” The game's other musical performance, the halftime show, went off controversy-free. (More Gladys Knight stories.)