New North Carolina bill nothing more than political posturing by House sponsors

A new North Carolina bill sounds tough, but just a casual examination of the facts surrounding it show that its proposal is just campaign fodder for the four primary sponsors.

This new North Carolina bill, H728, threatens the ACC with the loss of both of the state’s public universities if it boycotts the state again. That won’t happen, because of this potential law anyway, because this bill isn’t really intended to become law. The sponsors know it won’t, and are just using its proposal as fodder for their re-election campaigns.

H728’s language is clear as it is currently written. The ACC pulling its neutral-site events like conference championship tournaments from all venues in North Carolina would trigger the bill’s provisions. Media rights given to the conference by the state’s public schools – NC State and UNC in the ACC’s case (Duke is a private school and therefore not bound by this bill if it should become law, as it is currently written) – immediately. Even more ominous, the schools would immediately inform the ACC that they intend to leave the conference as soon as the conference’s media rights contracts expire.

Losing a brand as powerful as the Tar Heels, and to a lesser but still relevant degree the Wolfpack, would be a significant loss for the ACC. Leaving the ACC, however, would be just as much of a serious loss for NC State and UNC.

Being part of the ACC has been lucrative for both schools over the years. In addition to receiving their share of over $30 million in March Madness payouts earned by the conference’s teams the past two seasons, Clemson’s national championship in football brought the ACC nearly $60 million that both schools got their cut of as well. UNC has been a big part of the reason why the ACC has gotten nation-leading hauls in March Madness, but it can’t count on reaching the national championship game every year. NC State could suffer more, as it hasn’t seen the same on-court success in men’s basketball recently as UNC has.

While it’s theoretically possible that another Power 5 conference with similar revenue potential could add NC State and UNC in this scenario, the uncertainty of the situation is something that the state’s board of regents would rather avoid. Those people have tremendous political influence, and could use it to defeat this bill. NC State and UNC need the ACC as much as the ACC needs them, but that’s not the main reason why this bill shouldn’t be taken seriously.

The timing of the proposal of this bill is the biggest show of the legislators’ hands. According to Andrea Adelson of ESPN, this bill needs to be through committee and passed by the full House by April 27, or by the admission of one of the bill’s own sponsors, it’s dead. Anyone familiar with the glacial pace that legislation takes knows the chances of both of those things happening in two weeks aren’t high. This bill will languish in committee and miss the deadline. Perhaps it simply took this long for the bill to get enough support to be legitimately proposed, but the more likely scenario is that the bill’s sponsors never really intended it to become law.

This way, the bill’s sponsors can still sell themselves to their constituents as “standing up” to the ACC, but the ACC, NC State and UNC won’t have to deal with the undesirable consequences of this bill had it become law. H728 is nothing more than a political device for legislators looking to perpetuate their careers.

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