North Carolina clearly underestimated the influence of the LGBTQ community.
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The Atlantic Coast Conference announced today that it will move 10 championship events out of North Carolina this year – including the ACC football championship game that was scheduled for December 3 in Charlotte.
There won’t be a seventh straight time after the conference’s decision Wednesday to move all eight championships to be played in the state.
The NCAA earlier this week took the unprecedented step of pulling seven championship events from the state over its objection to a law that can allow for discrimination against LGBT people.
The ACC and NCAA chose 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.
The women’s basketball tournament has called North Carolina home for 20 consecutive seasons, the last 17 in Greensboro.
The chairman of the organization’s board of governors, Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson, said, “This decision is consistent with the NCAA’s longstanding core values of inclusion, student-athlete well-being and creating a culture of fairness”.
The NCAA has asked Kennesaw State if it would consider submitting a bid to host the relocated women’s soccer and lacrosse national championships, athletic director Vaughn Williams confirmed Wednesday.
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 Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority said that on such short notice the event is “irreplaceable at this late date”, meaning the decision is likely to cost the city tens of millions of dollars.
The ACC football championship had been held in Charlotte in recent years and the ACC Baseball Tournament had been held in Durham and Greensboro.
The law, known as House Bill 2, was approved by the GOP-led legislature in March in response to Charlotte’s approval of an anti-discrimination ordinance for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people at hotels, restaurants and retailers.
Entertainers like Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam and Ringo Starr have canceled plans to play in North Carolina. “However, we regret today’s decision will negatively affect many North Carolinians, especially in the affected host communities”, the statement read.
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“Laws like this are actually discriminating against them and making someone that is taking an identity of a different sex go in the opposite restroom, which is humiliating and discriminatory”, Weinbrecht added.
