The North Carolina legislature has filed a bill, House Bill 728, that will require UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State to withdraw from the ACC if the conference boycotts the state again, according to ESPN.
This bill was filed as retaliation against the ACC for pulling neutral-site tournament and championship games due to House Bill 2.
HB728 states that any public state school in a conference that boycotts North Carolina would be barred from “extending any grant of media rights to the conference” and “shall immediately provide written notice to the conference that the constituent institution intends to withdraw from the conference no later than when the assignment of its media rights expire, unless the conference immediately ends the boycott.”
Duke and Wake Forest are private schools and would not have to withdraw from the ACC, but UNC and NC State are both public state schools and do not have that protection. Rep. Mark Brody, a primary sponsor for the bill, was unclear if NC State and UNC were contacted before the bill was filed, but had plenty of other choice words to say on the matter.
“Now these conferences, they’re going to have to think twice about doing a boycott, especially for something that’s as out of their core mission as they did trying to influence legislation of the General Assembly,” Brody told ESPN. “If they do it again, now they’ll know there will be a price to pay.”
However, ACC Commissioner John Swofford expressed optimism that the schools would remain in the ACC when discussing the matter with local ESPN reporters.
“I would expect NC State and the University of North Carolina as founding members of the ACC to be in the ACC for many, many years to come,” Swofford said. “I don’t think the schools are talking about pulling out by any stretch of the imagination. Our conference is going to act in ways that our council of presidents deems are appropriate in terms of its values and that’s how the league will be run. That’s how the league has always been run and will be in the future. I think you’ll see the ACC at 15 strong for many, many years to come.”
However, if it comes to this, leaving the conference will not come without a cost. When Maryland left the ACC for the Big Ten Conference in 2014, it had to pay a $31.4 million exit fee, according to USA Today. If UNC or NC State left, it would likely have to pay at least that amount, if not more.
The state legislature has gone on the offensive, but time will tell if the ACC will fight back and if any more ramifications will come from this.
