ACC commissioner John Swofford said his conference isn’t ready to pull its championship games from North Carolina because of the state’s House Bill 2, but it's watching the developments closely.
House Bill 2 (HB2) has become a contentious topic around the country and has sparked many companies and performers to take their business out of the state. HB2 bans anti-discrimination measures based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and requires transgender people to use public bathrooms that match their birth certificates. The Justice Department has filed a civil rights lawsuit over the bill and North Carolina has countersued.
"We're going to do what we think is best in the context of who we are as a major college conference," Swofford said of moving his conference championships. "We absolutely have been and still are and always will be dedicated to all the things that we've said before. Ultimately, we're not going to take championships anywhere we can't be assured that's respected and people coming to our events are treated and respected fairly and treated well. That's absolutely critical to this conference."
For the 2015-16 academic year, the ACC had 11 championship games in the state, including the football championship. Last year, the ACC extended its partnership with Charlotte to host the ACC championship game through 2019. Five ACC sports have multi-year contracts with the state of North Carolina.
While Swofford said his conference has every intention of playing out the current contracts, he said the topic would be a point of conversation during the conference’s spring meetings.
"This is playing out in ways none of us could have envisioned, so I think a lot of us are dealing with something we've never dealt with before," Swofford said. "We'll have to see what the end point is. Then I'm sure the conference will revisit that."
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