Despite the complete financial failure of the boycott against the state, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is once again warning the State of North Carolina that if it doesn’t repeal its year-old bathroom law, the league will cancel all tournament games. And this time the NCAA says it will boycott the Tar Heel State until the year 2022.
In a statement released this week, the NCAA renewed its warning against North Carolina’s HB2 bathroom law that maintains that people only use bathrooms in government-operated facilities that correspond to their birth gender.
Because of the bill, which was signed into law early in 2016, the NCAA announced a boycott of the state for the 2016/2017 season.
With the end of that season and looking forward, the NCAA has now reaffirmed its boycott.
The league released an updated statement on March 23:
Last year, the NCAA Board of Governors relocated NCAA championships scheduled in North Carolina because of the cumulative impact HB2 had on local communities’ ability to assure a safe, healthy, discrimination free atmosphere for all those watching and participating in our events. Absent any change in the law, our position remains the same regarding hosting current or future events in the state. As the state knows, next week our various sports committees will begin making championships site selections for 2018-2022 based upon bids received from across the country. Once the sites are selected by the committee, those decisions are final and an announcement of all sites will be made on April 18.
The renewed threat from the college sports association comes on the heels of news that the various attempts to boycott North Carolina have turned out to be a massive failure that has had little financial impact on the state’s economy.
The economic statistics for 2016 are in, and it appears that hotel revenue for the Tar Heel State saw no major dip. Indeed, “the state’s economy didn’t miss a beat,” according to the Washington Times.
Also, as 2016 ended with various boycotts by sports leagues and liberal groups in the offing, North Carolina ended up coming in fourth in the nation for attracting and expanding businesses. It was the exact same result seen in 2015, so the boycott clearly had no impact on the business climate.
North Carolina’s unemployment rate also saw no increases, proving that businesses were not firing employees in droves because of any boycott.
Finally, North Carolina’s Lieutenant Governor, Dan Forest, recently noted that if it had any impact at all, the boycott only affected the economy at “one-tenth of 1 percent of our annual GDP.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.