Friday September 16, 2016 - ACC moves its Championship games from North Carolina

The Atlantic Coast Conference announced Wednesday that it would move its neutral site championships out of North Carolina for the 2016-17 season in response to the state's controversial House Bill 2.

The law prevents cities and counties from passing protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. And public schools must require bathrooms or locker rooms be designated for use only by people based on their biological sex.

The ACC follows the lead of the NCAA, which announced Monday that it would relocate its championships for 2016-17.

The original dates and sites for the neutral site championships affected:

1. Women’s soccer: Nov. 4, 6; Cary
2. Football: Dec. 3; Charlotte
3. Men’s and women’s swimming and diving: Feb. 15-18; Greensboro
4. Women’s basketball: March 1-5; Greensboro
5. Men’s and women’s tennis: April 26-30; Cary
6. Women’s golf: April 21-23, Greensboro
7. Men’s golf: April 21-23; New London
8. Baseball: May 23-28; Durham

Finding a football stadium as ACC-friendly as Charlotte might be difficult. The championship game’s been played at Bank of America Stadium for the past six seasons with an average attendance of 69,641. In the previous two seasons (2008-09) the game was held at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa and averaged 49,412 spectators.

“We’ll do what we need to do,” Swofford said. “It’s a challenge, our next challenge.”

Swofford said the ACC would consider the issue again in the spring if nothing changed in North Carolina’s law. Such prohibitions can last for quite some time: The NCAA’s ban on South Carolina hosting neutral-site championships for flying the Confederate flag on Statehouse grounds lasted from 2001 until it came down last summer.