Should baseball teams be required to play the national anthem at the state of every game? Legislation filed by Sen. Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, and Rep. Tommy Gregory, R-Sarasota, would mandate a commitment to do so in the contracts for any sports franchise accepting Florida taxpayer dollars. That would apply to the Major League Baseball teams with contracts in Sarasota and Manatee counties — the Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles and Pittsburgh Pirates — when It comes time to renew the deals or adjust them in any way.

“I will be shocked and disgusted if any of them come out in opposition,” Gregory said. “It’s important to look to the symbols and sacred history of this country, and the songs and the flag are part of that. We should have a sense of national unity and should be prideful about being the great melting pot of the world.”

The Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee this week already advanced a version of the bill in the upper chamber of the Florida Legislature. Gruters, who acknowledged all the teams taking public dollars to operate in Florida already play the anthem at every game, said mandating that puts but a small requirement on the franchises.

“Florida is the Freedom State,” he said, “and if you want taxpayer dollars for your stadium, you will have to play the national anthem. It is reasonable and appropriate to think we would continue to play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at tax-funded stadiums.”

So far, no major sports franchises have come out against the proposal, though it’s drawn some philosophical objection in the lawmaker world. Former Florida Speaker of the House Jose Oliva, a Republican with a notable libertarian bent, has voiced upset at the proposal. “A government enforced mandate requiring private business to engage in displays of allegiance for the purpose of advancing freedom is the antithesis of freedom,” he tweeted, tagging Gruters. “Let’s rethink that one.”

Sen. Bobby Powell, D-West Palm Beach, voted against the bill in committee, saying compelling speech actually violated the idea Florida represents Freedom. “That bill appears to be government overreach in terms of telling private operations how to run their business,” he said. “We cannot pick and choose when to be free.”

Gregory counters that professional teams in Florida in some cases have collected tens of millions in public funding to upkeep stadiums. He’s opposed to that, and considers public subsidizing of sports to be about the worst use of local tax dollars governments make in terms of return on investment. But since it happens, playing the anthem is a small price teams should pay in return. A staff report notes eight teams headquartered in Florida that have collected millions from Florida’s Professional Sports Franchise Program alone, including the Tampa Bay Rays and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

“These aren’t private companies,” Gregory said. “These stadiums and the entities that run them are receiving as much as $140,000 a month just in tax dollars for contracts with local, state and federal government. I would put ‘private companies’ in quotation marks. This is tax-subsidized sports entertainment.”