NBA Commissioner Adam Silver single-handedly decided to move the 2017 annual ‘All-Star Weekend’ from Charlotte, North Carolina to New Orleans, Louisiana in response to a law passed by NC legislature – which was significant since it cost the state approximately $30 million in revenue.
Then, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) followed the NBA’s lead by moving neutral-site conference championship games out of the state.
And during the first weekend of the annual March Madness, coaches from historical powerhouse basketball programs of elite university rivals banned together to call the NC law “stupid”.
According to Breitbart:
“Legendary college basketball coaches Mike Krzyzewski of Duke and Roy Williams of North Carolina teach their players about basketball and offer life lessons too–like on correct bathroom usage.
The two voiced their disdain for the state of North Carolina’s law [HB2 transgender bathroom law] that requires people use the bathroom that corresponds to their biological gender in government buildings and state-funded universities.
The law reads, ‘Public agencies [and local boards of education] shall require every multiple occupancy bathrooms or changing facility to be designated for and only used by persons based on their biological sex.’
As a result of the Tar Heel state’s legislation, the NCAA pulled the University of North Carolina as a venue for the popular March Madness tournament for 2017.
Coach Williams explained to USA Today his contempt for the law and the state’s unwillingness to repeal it, saying, ‘I’m very sad, very disappointed about the whole thing, which apparently is something that’s really, really hard to change.’
Coach K preached his words of wisdom on March Bathroom Madness while criticizing his home state and complimenting NCAA replacement venue, Greenville, South Carolina.
‘They have the right to host it whether our state is smart enough to have it,’ he said.
‘It shouldn’t be a contest of one against another. It would be nice if our state got as smart and also would host not just basketball tournaments but concerts and other NCAA events. But maybe we’ll get there in the next century, I don’t know.’
We’ll see. Look, it’s a stupid thing. That’s my political statement. If I was president or governor I’d get rid of it.
And I’d back up my promises. As unusual as that might be. Anyway, I don’t want to get too political.”
South Carolina knows well the ramifications of the NCAA’s political agenda.
For fourteen years the home state of Fort Sumter, where soldiers fired the first shots of the Civil War, were denied hosting the premier NCAA basketball tournament for flying the Confederate flag on the capitol grounds.
In July 2015 then-Governor Nicky Halley ordered the flag removed.”
It is absurd that states are not allowed individual identities in what laws they pass because they risk being nationally shamed, fueled by liberal outrage.
But furthermore, these decisions by the leagues/conferences are depriving economic revenue from Charlotte, NC locals because of one law?
And regardless of which side NC residents land on whether the law is ridiculous or not, the ACC and NBA are overreaching their power on fairness by nationally dividing fairness in revenue.
Imagine if the NBA commissioner was a GOP Republican and decided to move the ‘All-Star weekend’ out of Los Angeles because of their defiant stance on illegal immigration?
What kind of outrage would that create?