Let's throw a hypothetical at you …
It's Sunday night and the crowd of 83,000 at ANZ Stadium is getting restless.
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NFL players defiant after Trump's boycott remarks
Players kneel during the US national anthem in the first game since President Trump called on fans to boycott teams that do no discipline players who protest.
We're minutes away from the NRL grand final between Melbourne and North Queensland. Millions of people around the world – yes, the world! – are watching.
But first, ladies and gentlemen, please be upstanding for the national anthem …
As former Australian Idol contestant Ricki-Lee takes the microphone and channels her inner Julie Anthony, a ripple of discontent can be heard in the crowd.
Not everyone is standing. Both teams are lined up, facing the grandstand, but Storm players Will Chambers and Josh Addo-Carr have taken a knee, their heads lowered.
Both players are Indigenous and long after the match they explain to reporters huddled around them that they took this stance because they could no longer tolerate important issues about the treatment of their people being swept aside.
This month, the United Nations condemned Australia for its extraordinarily high rate of incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as a "major human rights concern".
![More than a hundred NFL players dropped a knee or stayed in the locker room during the national anthem this weekend.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170928050117im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/y/o/7/l/w/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gyo7dx.png/1506343687203.jpg)
So said the UN's Victoria Tauli-Corpu: "There have been allegations of serious abuses, including violent strip-searches, teargassing, hooding and prolonged isolation committed against Aboriginal children in custody."
In the past month, Shane Flanagan's spray of the referees, Darius Boyd's hamstring, and Des Hasler's sacking have garnered more attention.
Now, because of the simple gesture of two footballers, it is the issue everyone is talking about. Not just rugby league, but the country. The world starts watching, too.
As I said, this is a hypothetical scenario but it's worth investigating in the week when the smallest of issues will be splashed all over our newspapers with headlines in war type.
It's also worth investigating because of US President Donald Trump, who launched a bizarre three-day campaign calling on NFL players to be sacked if they protested during their national anthem because of police brutality and racial inequality relating to African-Americans.
Said Trump at a rally last Friday: "Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFLÂ owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a bitch off the field right now'? Out. He's fired. He's fired!"
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick started this conversation last season when he dropped down on one knee during the national anthem.
Now it's a movement. In light of Trump's comments, more than a hundred NFL players dropped a knee or stayed in the locker room at the weekend.
![Start of something big: Colin Kaepernick took to one knee during the American national anthem last season to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter campaign.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170928050117im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/p/q/m/b/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x349.png/1488496585606.png)
Start of something big: Colin Kaepernick took to one knee during the American national anthem last season to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter campaign. Photo: AP
Other players and officials locked arms in a display of solidarity for their black teammates. Team owners, including Trump's close friend, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, condemned the President's inflammatory words.
Too late. The issue had already caught fire. NBA stars LeBron James and Steph Curry weighed in. Then this from Golden State's coach Stephen Kerr: "Well, you know what else is disrespectful to our flag? Racism."
Trump has already told the NBA champions won't be welcomed at the White House.
The relevance of this for Australia is that it will drag out the standard response: "Stick to sports. That's what you're paid to do."
Many argue sport and politics should not mix. I'm trying to remember a time when they haven't.
A week ago, Australia's major codes declared they were backing same-sex marriage. Only the Australian Olympic Committee said it would not.
Fans and players and officials are free to vote whichever way they want, but the respective governing bodies believed they had an obligation to support equality, inclusion and acceptance of everyone.
Sam Newman wasn't having a bar of it.
On last Thursday's AFL Footy Show, he looked down the barrel of the camera, squared up the AFL and bellowed: "For god's sake, there's a plebiscite going on in the country! What right have you got to say what people should be doing? You are nothing more than obsequious, fawning, sycophantic political whores. You have no right to get involved in political messages. Let people go to the football and do what they want to do: just watch the game."
Co-host Eddie McGuire countered: "If you don't stand for something you stand for nothing."
NRL Footy Show co-host Erin Molan backed up Newman's stance.
"My reluctance is that sporting codes represent thousands of people and I am very against any of them feeling cut off as a result of that code coming out in favour," she said. "What about the people who work within the AFL who don't believe in same-sex marriage, who now feel alienated and not part of their sporting code?"
Apparently, under this premise, those who feel alienated by the AFL not backing same-sex marriage do not matter. Where some see a political issue, others see a basic human rights issue. Where some see the divisiveness of a sporting code making a stance, others see it bringing the game closer together.
Adam Goodes took a stance about racism and the backlash effectively ran him out of the game. Critics still claim the 13-year-old Collingwood supporter who called him an "ape" is the real victim.
Only with time – usually decades – does adulation come to those sportspeople who decide they're in a position of power to make a difference for the greater good.
Muhammad Ali had many fights in and out of the ring, but those in the name of civil rights made him a reviled figure in his day, a legend only years later.
Tommie Smith and John Carlos famously wore black gloves on clenched fists and raised them into the air on the medal dais after the 200m men's final at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.
As they left the stadium, they were booed and racist insults fired at them.
Said Carlos only recently: "I had a moral obligation to step up. Morality was a far greater force than the rules and regulations they had."
![Iconic protest: But Peter Norman, Tommie Smith and John Carlos were shunned after their stand at the 1968 Olympics.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170928050117im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/y/o/7/z/n/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x349.png/1506313980176.png)
Iconic protest: But Peter Norman, Tommie Smith and John Carlos were shunned after their stand at the 1968 Olympics. Photo: AP
The man who came second in that race, Australia's Peter Norman, had been completely supportive in what Smith and Carlos were doing. He never competed at another Olympics and slipped into a deep depression. Australian sport forgot him.
Only in recent years, and following his death in 2006, has he been recognised for playing such an important role in an important protest.
Stick to sport or drop a knee and send a message about what's right and wrong? Or, at the very least, start an important conversation?
Last word to Nelson Mandela, who probably understood it better than all of us:Â "Sport has the power to change to change the world. It has the power to inspire, it has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair, it is more powerful than government in breaking down racial barriers."
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