Grandstanding North Carolina reps threaten ACC with UNC and NC State exits that won’t happen

A couple of Republican state representatives in North Carolina are tired of sports organizations meddling in their state’s politics, and they’ve proposed a bill to appear like they’re doing something about it.

Recently, lawmakers in the Tar Heel State repealed HB2, a sweeping anti-LGBTQ bill that passed last year. The “repeal,” while not actually changing much, was an important economic step for the state. The NBA, NCAA, and ACC had all pulled major events out of North Carolina because of HB2, and the new bill could bring future events back. The NCAA pulled championship events from the state but announced it would consider North Carolina again after HB2’s repeal. So did the ACC.

On Tuesday, four state reps introduced a bill that says if the ACC “boycotts” North Carolina again, both the University of North Carolina and NC State University would have to leave the ACC.

UNC and NC State are major economic engines and pride points for North Carolina, and their ACC membership is critical to everything their athletic departments do.

Despite the unlikelihood this bill becomes law, it’s an excellent case study in why state lawmakers don’t have much power over sports leagues that make them angry.

It applies to “constituent institutions” of UNC, which are NC State and 16 other schools, including Appalachian State, Charlotte, and UNC Wilmington. If those schools are in conferences that “boycott” North Carolina, the bill sets forth some severe consequences.

Such a school would be “prohibited from extending any grant of media rights” to the boycotting conference beyond its current contract with the league. The ban on extending a media rights deal (and thus making money from a new one) would last for five years after the conference ended its theoretical next boycott of the state.

The school would need to set aside all the money it makes off conference media rights until the end of its current deal, earmarking those funds to pay an exit fee.

It’d need that exit fee money because the bill would require the school to leave the conference as soon as its current grant of media rights is finished. The ACC’s exit fee is tens of millions of dollars, though its enforcement has been legally tricky.

The ACC recently extended its grant of rights into the 2030s. Its member schools could eventually be making more than $30 million per year in media rights, with a new conference TV network set to launch in 2019. Leaving the ACC — to become independent, or join the SEC, or something? — could cost UNC or NC State hundreds of millions. It’s the sort of lost windfall that ensures neither will leave.

It’s easy political grandstanding, and it’s happened a few times this year.

A state rep in Mississippi decided in January that his state should be the boss of an NCAA investigation into Ole Miss. A state rep in Iowa decided that he’d like to legally bar the Big Ten from putting the Hawkeyes football team in Friday night games. That one’s a fair idea, but his power is limited, too.

The NCAA and its member conferences don’t pay players, but they’re a never-ending gravy train for schools. UNC and NC State make so much money from their association with the ACC (and have such deep roots in that league), that leaving without a coherent plan to join another conference would never happen, not in all of eternity. The ACC benefits from North Carolina’s cooperation, but this is about leverage.

Even if the Republican legislature passed this bill, the state’s Democratic governor would probably veto it. He’s publicly opposed to HB2, and the bill is largely a way to lash out at its out-of-state opponents.

But the biggest reason it won’t pass is a simpler one: The ACC backs up a dump truck full of money into the state’s garage every year, and nobody wants that to stop. Legislative huffing and puffing doesn’t compete with conference dollars and cents.