The Atlantic Coast Conference has followed the lead of the NCAA, the National Basketball Association, and a number of high-profile entertainers in becoming the latest to relocate events from North Carolina because of the state’s controversial “bathroom law”.
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The North Carolina state House leader says decisions this week by the NCAA and Atlantic Coast Conference to move championship events out of North Carolina are “very unfortunate” but he isn’t backing down from supporting a state law that led to their actions.
The commissioner added that he hopes “there will be opportunities beyond 2016-2017 for North Carolina neutral sites to be awarded championships”. “All locations will be announced in the future from the conference office”.
It’s the latest fallout from HB2 – the state’s so-called “bathroom law”, which requires transgender people to use restrooms at schools and government buildings based on the sex on their birth certificates.
“We are proud to have helped put on this event over the past five years”, executive director Will Webb said in a statement.
Besides the men’s basketball games scheduled in Greensboro for March 17 and 19, events involving Division I women’s soccer, Division I women’s golf, Division I women’s lacrosse, Division III men’s and women’s soccer, Division III men’s and women’s tennis, and Division II baseball will be moved from North Carolina to other states. Pat McCrory, prohibits cities from approving expanded local accommodations for gay and transgendered people beyond the state’s existing laws.
That decision followed the NBA’s move earlier this summer to take the 2017 NBA All-Star game away from Charlotte.
“I don’t know that it matters as much that there are so many institutions that have had such a history in the state of North Carolina as it is that the league itself wields so much economic power”, said Bilas, a former Duke basketball player.
This year’s football championship game was scheduled to be played in Charlotte at Bank of America Stadium, but now will have to find a new place.
Nonchampionship ACC games will continue to be played in North Carolina, the conference’s home state. “The people of North Carolina deserve better and have a chance to make their voices heard November 8”. Such prohibitions can last for quite some time: The NCAA’s ban on SC hosting neutral-site championships for flying the Confederate flag on Statehouse grounds lasted from 2001 until it came down last summer.
The Central Florida Sports Commission said Wednesday it will pursue the ACC championship events, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
House speaker Tim Moore, a Republican who helped pass HB 2, said organizations like the ACC and NCAA are entitled to pick where they host events.
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“… I think it is time we give serious consideration to modifying, or possibly repealing.”
