The NCAA announced Monday that it would remove all of its 2016-17 school year championship events from the state, leaving North Carolina with few marquee sporting events to host during the season.
Advertisement
The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) ordered all championships at neutral, off-campus sites out of the state of North Carolina for the upcoming academic year.
“Protection, safety, security of women and girls in North Carolina is our utmost importance and that’s what we still believe”, said North Carolina Lt. Gov. Dan Forrest. “They’re not for sale to Hollywood, to any concert venue, to the National Basketball Association or the NCAA”. The NBA moved its 2017 All-Star game out of Charlotte, and entertainers such as Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam and Ringo Starr have canceled shows in North Carolina.
Replacement venues have not been finalized, but the ACC council of presidents said as part of the statements released on the conference website that locations will be announced “in the future from the conference office”. The NCAA and Atlantic Coast Conference this week pulled championship events for this academic year scheduled for North Carolina because of the law. UNC System president Margaret Spellings said state institutions are welcoming to all and don’t discriminate based on sex, sexual orientation or gender identity.
The news wasn’t surprising, but that made it no less significant, no less maddening and no less costly to communities in North Carolina. Pat McCrory last spring which negates all local LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination laws in the states and forbids transgender people to use appropriate public restroom facilities.
ACC commissioner John Swofford said after the NCAA’s decision, conference officials would review their next steps.
If the ACC is deciding to relocate championship games out of North Carolina over HB2, it’s hard to say what’ll go next.
Malvin Williams-Tyson, while shopping for Florid State University gear at Gator, Seminole Knight Fever in Orlando, told Channel 9 she wants the ACC championship to be in Orlando.
“Syracuse University is committed to the core values of diversity, inclusion and respect”, Syverud said.
The governor apparently so fears retribution from his own party, now in control of the General Assembly, that he doesn’t have the gumption to say what needs to be said: Repeal HB2 and let us be done with this foolishness.
The ACC Baseball Tournament will move from North Carolina for the first time since 2009.
Four of the ACC’s 15 members are in North Carolina, and the conference has its headquarters in Greensboro.
Advertisement
The ACC game, which was to be played December 3 at Bank of America Stadium, had been expected to draw tens of thousands of fans and pour millions of dollars into Charlotte’s economy.
