— We interrupt this NCAA Tournament to bring you a special message.

First, I'd like to congratulate the Duke Blue Devils on a very good season. Although their run came to an end Thursday night against Oregon, Duke has been an exemplar over the years of North Carolina's basketball prowess.

Next, let’s all come together to root for the Tar Heels when they meet Indiana Friday night in Philadelphia. The Tar Heels, another storied program, are seeking their third title under Roy Williams and started that quest right here, at Raleigh’s PNC Arena, last week.

I just hope that basketball legacy holds weight when the National Collegiate Athletic Association decides whether the state of North Carolina is a worthy place to host future events.

Worthy? The NCAA has brought the men’s tournament to the Old North State in five of the last six years. They’re already scheduled for Greensboro next year and Charlotte in 2018, and the expectation is that Raleigh will be in the mix soon after.

Why would the NCAA suddenly turn its back on such a long-standing relationship?

Consider the law, House Bill 2, passed Wednesday in an emergency, one-day session of the General Assembly. The bill, the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, bans anti-discrimination measures based on gender identity and sexual orientation. In short, it cuts off any legal protection from discrimination those people might have had in, for instance, Charlotte, whose local ordinance would have required that businesses treat them no different from other customers and allow them to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity.

And there is the rub. The new state law requires that people use public restrooms and facilities that match the sex they were born with.

As a direct result, it’s very possible that many of sports’ governing bodies might look past North Carolina when it comes time to award major future events. They could even change their plans for, say, the NBA All-Star Game in Charlotte next year.

If you’re a UNC fan, that’s a problem. Carolina is 34-1 in NCAA Tournament games played within the state borders.

For the record, it’s not like this law just squeaked through. The bill breezed through the House by an 84-24 vote – a “1” versus a “16” if you will, in keeping with the tournament theme – before it was unanimously approved in the Senate, 32-0.

While the Democrats of the state Senate walked out, refusing to vote, 11 Democratic members of the state House supported the legislation, allowing Gov. Pat McCrory to describe is as a “bipartisan” effort.

"I have signed legislation,” McCrory said following Wednesday’s signing, “to stop this breach of basic privacy and etiquette…”

While this bill deals with far more complex issues than just who gets to use which public restroom, it would appear that the driving force behind it was a basic fear that transgender people were going to potentially make some of us “normal folk” uncomfortable.

It’s hard for me to see the real argument in favor of the state spending tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to call an emergency session of the General Assembly only to deny statewide what the City of Charlotte decided was right for its citizens.

In many ways, the loudest arguments against this seem like nothing more than fear-mongering to me. If you knew someone struggling with gender identity, you’d understand that, if anyone in that situation was apt to feel uncomfortable, it would be them, not you. In fact, the likelihood that you’d even know you were sharing a restroom with a transgender person isn’t very high. I mean, how many people make eye contact with strangers in the restroom at the game?

That’s it for my small dissertation on the issue. The appeal here is to your wallet, or – better put – the public coffers.

The National Basketball Association is scheduled to bring its All-Star Game to Charlotte next February, and they are acutely aware of what happened on Wednesday.

“The NBA is dedicated to creating an inclusive environment," said the opening line of a statement from the league’s commissioner, Adam Silver.

“We are deeply concerned that this discriminatory law runs counter to our guiding principles of equality and mutual respect and do not yet know what impact it will have on our ability to successfully host the 2017 All-Star Game in Charlotte.”

On average, the NBA’s showcase in-season event has brought a boost of about $70 million to $100 million to the local economy.

Three years ago, New Orleans said it received a $106.4 million boost to the collective bottom line. New York City and Toronto were in the same ballpark the last two years. Indianapolis is hot for a chance to host this game, and that is a city that is accustomed to big events.

You might wonder if it’s worth playing a game of chicken with the NBA over this issue. But then again, maybe you don’t care about basketball, and maybe you don’t live in Charlotte.

Remember the NHL All-Star game? That brought in about $11.5 million in direct spending right here in Raleigh. Last week, according to the Greater Raleigh Sports Alliance, we saw an additional $4.5 million spent in the City of Oaks thanks to the NCAA tourney's opening rounds.

Who wouldn't hate to sacrifice that revenue in the future?

“It is our expectation”, the NCAA said in a statement this week, “that all people will be welcomed and treated with respect in cities that host our NCAA championships and events.''

The state of South Carolina was shunned for years by the NCAA because the Confederate battle flag flew over the Statehouse. The National Football League gave the state of Arizona the brush off in its quest to host a Super Bowl until it declared Martin Luther King’s birthday a state holiday.

Consider that Greensboro, already bruised from the fact that the ACC Tournament is likely to make only occasional visits from now on, probably needs the revenue generated by next year’s NCAA visit.

Or what about Cary? Who will host this year’s College Cup, the Final Four of soccer, with roughly a half-million dollars of estimated economic impact?

Or the $1 million brought in by the Division II Baseball Tournament scheduled to be played in the Triangle the next three years?

In addition, the Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau has proposals out to host NCAA championships, in a wide array of sports, every year from 2018 to 2022.

We could spend a long, long, long time running down a list of major sporting events either scheduled or in the planning stages for our state. ESPN has been considering Charlotte as a new home for the Summer X-Games, but those plans have been put on hold. Think of all the Mountain Dew sales hanging in the balance.

The United States Golf Association brought both the Men’s and Women’s U.S. Opens here two years ago to the tune of over $140 million for the local economy. Why on earth would we want to jeopardize that?

Need more? The CIAA Basketball Tournament meant nearly $47 million in spending – though I’m not sure if that does or does not include the popular CIAA surcharges some restaurants were tacking on to the bill during that week in February 2015.

The ACC Football Championship Game was worth $31 million. The Belk Bowl brought another $17 million. And, yes, I get it, who cares about Charlotte? But what happened Wednesday impacts the entire state, not just the people of the Queen City.

But let’s leave sports for just a second. What about conventions? Raleigh has a beautiful convention center. Why give any organization any reason to choose Charleston or Greenville, S.C., or Atlanta – though Georgia has its own issues with this type of discriminatory behavior – over the City of Oaks? Wednesday provided that possibility. The Democratic National Convention four years ago brought $164 million to the state’s economy.

What about the businesses operating in the Tar Heel State? Red Hat, Biogen, Dow and others, including local, small businesses understand the damage done simply by the appearance that the state condones this type of discrimination. It’s bad for business. And if this type of decision seriously jeopardizes future events, and it undeniably does, how can the people we elected to grow our economy afford to risk so much?

I guess you could consider this a jobs program. Because if you’re going to enact this rule, you’ve got to enforce it, right? Someone’s going to have to monitor all of the public restrooms within our borders. Arenas, stadiums, amphitheaters, restaurants, colleges and universities, interstate highway rest areas, public parks, shopping malls, the North Carolina Zoo, etc., are all going to need bathroom sentries.

No one gets in without his or her “identity” matching their birth certificate. If you don’t have your birth certificate – long form preferably – then, I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to hold it until you get home.

Sounds silly, doesn’t it? Not as silly as jeopardizing hundreds of millions of North Carolina tourism dollars because some of our “leaders” are senselessly marching to the drum beat of fear.