“We believe North Carolina House Bill 2 is inconsistent with these values”.
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The ACC said in a statement that it is confident “every one of our 15 universities is strongly committed to these values [equality, diversity, inclusion and non-discrimination] and therefore, we will continue to host ACC Championships at campus sites”. A new location for the title game has not been announced although ESPN is claiming it will likely be held in Orlando, Florida.
The conference’s official site noted the seven neutral-site championships events that will be moved include football, baseball, women’s soccer, women’s basketball, men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s tennis, and men’s and women’s swimming and diving.
And although the ACC men’s basketball tournament will be played in NY next year, that tournament has only been played outside of North Carolina 12 times since 1954.
Williams said the idea of Kennesaw State bidding for the NCAA events has been discussed.
The NCAA’s decision to move the championships out of North Carolina came on the heels of the National Basketball Association relocating the 2017 All-Star game from Charlotte to New Orleans. The Tarheel State’s lawmakers are now taking the national heat that scorched IN in 2015 when the state Legislature passed a Religious Freedom Restoration Actthat was seen for what it was, a disciminatory affront to LGBT people.
Swofford added that he hoped that “there will be opportunities beyond 2016-17 for North Carolina neutral sites to be awarded championships”.
While the league was announcing the eventual launch of its network during ACC media days in Charlotte in July, Swofford deferred any decisions as a result of the HB2 law to the conference’s October meeting.
The ACC and NCAA made a decision to take away championships because of House Bill 2, which in part stops local governments from passing broad ordinances protecting sexual orientation and gender identity.
Ben Graumann, spokesperson for Equality NC, said the decisions from the ACC and NCAA to relocate championship events aren’t surprising, given the two organizations’ commitment to protecting fans and players.
Republican legislative leaders and McCrory have shown no signs of backing off the law involving LGBT rights and which bathrooms transgender people can use.
“College sports is part of the fabric of North Carolina”.
The NCAA noted the decision stemmed from “the cumulative actions taken by the state concerning civil rights protections”. The championship game has been played at Bank of America Stadium for the last six seasons, with an average attendance of 69,641.
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Both events were originally scheduled for WakeMed Stadium in Cary, North Carolina, a city within the Raleigh-Durham metropolitan area that has frequently hosted numerous events at the NCAA and Atlantic Coast Conference levels.
