The Dallas Mavericks haven't played the national anthem during home games this season and don't plan to play it moving forward, owner Mark Cuban confirmed to Axios.

Why it matters: The Mavericks are believed to be the first American professional sports team to cease playing the anthem at home.

• MLS teams didn't play the anthem during last summer's Orlando tournament because the league didn't feel it was "appropriate" without fans in the stands.
• But teams resumed the tradition once they returned to their home stadiums.

What they're saying: Cuban provided no further comment after the change was first reported by The Athletic, simply telling me: "We haven't played it yet this season. This is the first time it's come up."

• In June, Cuban expressed support for players kneeling, telling ESPN: "If they were taking a knee and they were being respectful, I'd be proud of them. Hopefully I'd join them."
• In July, he tweeted, "The national anthem police in this country are out of control. If you want to complain, complain to your boss and ask why they don't play the national anthem every day before you start work."

The state of play: Dallas never formally announced the new policy, but Cuban was allowed to enact it because the NBA has permitted teams "to run their pregame operations as they see fit" this season, per a league spokesman.

• On Monday, the Mavericks became the 11th NBA team to welcome fans, admitting 1,500 frontline workers to their game against the Timberwolves.

The backdrop: The NBA requires players to stand for the anthem, but the league hasn't enforced the rule in recent years as kneeling became a method of protest.

• In that context, the Mavericks' decision could be viewed as the team simply doing away with a tradition that has taken on a life of its own.
• Of note: Many NBA teams kneeled during the anthem last month following the Capitol siege and news that the police officers who shot Jacob Blake wouldn't face charges. The Mavericks (away at Denver) were one of them.

History lesson ... The "Star-Spangled Banner" was played at a few sporting events in the 1800s, but it made its mainstream debut during the 1918 World Series (Red Sox vs. Cubs), which took place amid World War I and a global pandemic.

• By 1931, it had become the official U.S. national anthem.
• By the end of World War II, the NFL required it be played at every game.
• The tradition quickly spread to other sports, thanks to post-World War II patriotism and better PA systems.

Go deeper: How sports met "The Star-Spangled Banner" (NPR)

MLB is slightly altering the construction of its baseballs in the hopes of deadening them off the bat, Axios' Jeff Tracy writes.

Driving the news: The league sent a memo to all 30 teams outlining changes that would "center the ball within the specification range" of bounciness — a range that has always been wide enough for significant variance among balls.

Why it matters: After years of surging home run rates amid claims of a juiced ball, the notoriously tight-lipped league has finally gone public with meaningful equipment changes and the reasons behind them.

The backdrop: Five of the six highest home run rates in MLB history came in the past five seasons (the other was in 2000, at the height of the steroid era).

• Players have questioned if juiced balls were the culprit, but MLB has repeatedly said no intentional changes were made.
• Independent auditors have attempted to test the balls to find clues, but getting their hands on game-used equipment is easier said than done.
• "They're very shady about things," an unnamed team employee told SI. "Everything's gotta be a secret. It's not the CIA here, right? This is baseball."

The state of play: Balls are comprised of a core (made of cork and rubber); a center (four distinct layers of wound yarn); and a cover (stitched leather).

• Changes — namely to the ball's size, weight and bounciness — can alter the way it flies off the bat.
• Per its memo, MLB will decrease the bounciness by loosening the tension of the yarn in the center.

What to watch: There's no guarantee these changes actually de-juice the ball as intended.

• The Korea Baseball Organization in 2018 successfully deadened its ball by similarly reducing bounciness, but also by increasing the size and weight, which increased drag and kept the ball in the park.
• MLB's new ball, by contrast, is expected to be ~2.8 grams lighter, which could actually reduce drag and offset any change resulting from the decreased bounce.

P.S. ... In other MLB news, the league released its new health and safety protocols for the 2021 season, including mandatory contact-tracing wearables and very few exceptions to leaving the hotel while on the road.

The Super Bowl drew its lowest audience in well over a decade, Axios' Sara Fischer and Jeff write.

By the numbers: 96.4 million people watched Super Bowl LV across live TV and the streaming services that Nielsen measures — a 5.5% decrease year-over-year.

• Linear TV: Nielsen estimates that just 91.6 million watched on CBS' live broadcast network, compared to 99.9 million who watched last year on Fox.

Of note: Nielsen only last year began counting live streaming and out-of-home viewership, though it still doesn't have full coverage of the non-linear landscape.

• In other words, 2020 and 2021 are the only years in the chart above that include any streaming numbers, but it's likely that actual total viewership exceeded Nielsen's reports thanks to that coverage gap.

The big picture: Live linear viewership of the Super Bowl and television more broadly will continue to decline as more households migrate to streaming.

• Yes, but: That hasn't hurt its commercial value. 30-second ad spots averaged roughly $5.5 million this year — the highest ever.

More Super Bowl:

• Fun fact: 90% of players in Super Bowl LV were multi-sport athletes in high school.
• 🎥 Watch: Bucs receivers were in awe of Patrick Mahomes.

Another week, another set of wild facts about the most bizarre college basketball season ever.

• Kansas dropped out of the polls for the first time in 12 years. Gonzaga now owns the longest streak (90 weeks).
• Duke lost to Notre Dame on Tuesday to fall below .500 for the first time since 1999. The Blue Devils' tournament hopes are hanging in the balance.
• 60 years ago: The last time Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, UNC and UCLA were all unranked was 1961.

🤯 Mind-blowing: None of the 13 winningest programs in Division I history are currently ranked.

1. Kentucky
2. Kansas
3. UNC
4. Duke
5. Temple
6. Syracuse
7. UCLA
8. Notre Dame
9. St. John's
10. Indiana
11. Cincinnati
12. Utah
13. Arizona

Looking ahead: Projected bracket (ESPN)

South Carolina took the top spot this week, but the Gamecocks' reign will be short-lived after their overtime loss to No. 2 UConn on Monday, Jeff writes.

Who to watch: Freshman phenom Paige Bueckers led the Huskies to the win and is having an incredible season, averaging 21.1 points, 5.0 rebounds, 5.6 assists and 2.6 steals while shooting an absurd 55.6% from three (on 4.5 attempts per game).

• After dropping 31 on South Carolina, she became the first player in UConn history with three straight 30-point games. As a freshman!
• Maya Moore, the best of UConn's elite alumni, scored a record 678 points as a freshman in 2007-08. Bueckers won't reach that mark due to the shortened season, but if she were able to play a full season, she'd be on pace to smash it.

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The backdrop: Sometimes, a player vaults onto the national stage out of nowhere. This is not one of those times.

• Bueckers played varsity as an eighth grader at Hopkins High School in Edina, Minnesota, where she'd spend the next four years routinely going viral.
• As a senior, she became the first female high school player to appear on the cover of SLAM and won nearly every national player of the year award.

The last word: "She's that player," UConn coach Geno Auriemma told AP. "She's that player that comes along that people talk about — 'Hey did you see that kid from Connecticut?' She's that kid."

Go deeper: Bueckers is living up to the hype (SB Nation)

Serena Williams is through to the third round as her quest for a record-tying 24th Grand Slam continues.

Venus Williams' tournament is over. The 40-year-old suffered a right ankle injury during her 6-1, 6-0 second-round loss to Italian veteran Sara Errani.

• Errani now faces Taiwan's Hsieh Su-wei, following her shock upset of No. 8 seed Bianca Andreescu.
• Novak Djokovic navigated a tricky second-round match against American Frances Tiafoe, winning 6-3, 6-7, 7-6, 6-3.

Go deeper: At the Australian Open, sports flirts with normalcy (NYT)

⛳️ The PGA of America will allow distance-measuring devices at its three majors for the first time this year. The devices, which are used in amateur and recreational play, can hone in on a flagstick to determine the exact yardage.

💔 The pilot in the crash that killed Kobe Bryant and eight others ignored his training and violated flight rules when he flew blindly into clouds that caused him to become disoriented, federal investigators said Tuesday.

💵 Colin Kaepernick has formed a blank-check company (i.e. SPAC) that will seek to raise $250 million in an IPO.

⚽️ MLS and the MLSPA have ratified a revised collective bargaining agreement, guaranteeing labor peace, at least for this season. Dive into the details.

🏒 The Lamoureux twins, Jocelyne and Monique, are retiring after 14 years. The sisters won numerous championships with USA Hockey and scored the decisive goals in the gold medal game of the 2018 Olympics.

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25 years ago today, IBM's "Deep Blue" beat Garry Kasparov in a game of chess, becoming the first computer to win a game over a reigning world champion.

• Kasparov ultimately won the six-game match (3 wins, 2 draws, 1 loss), honing his anti-computer tactics along the way.
• But Deep Blue won the rematch in 1997, becoming the first computer to beat a world champ in a full, six-game match under tournament conditions.

The big picture: AI has made huge advancements since then, and five years ago a different program scored an even more stunning victory.

• AlphaGo, from Google's DeepMind, beat 18-time international champion Lee Sedol in a game of Go a full decade sooner than experts thought possible.
• Go, the ancient Chinese board game, "is far more complex than chess and was seen as a kind of final frontier in AI research," per FiveThirtyEight.

Go deeper: How a chess match started the big data revolution (The Conversation)

Marty Schottenheimer, who died Tuesday at age 77, is the seventh-winningest coach in NFL history (200 regular-season wins).

• Question: Who are the six coaches ahead of him?
• Hint: Five of the six have an "L" in their last name.

Answer at the bottom.

1. 🏀 Steph Curry isn't fair
2. 👟 Hurdlin' Holloway
3. 🏀 Simmons' no-look dime
4. 🏒 Grimaldi rips one
5. 🏀 Denied at the rim

Watch all 5.