A.J. Perez

USA TODAY Sports

Four North Carolina lawmakers proposed legislation this week that would force the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State to pull out of the Atlantic Coast Conference if the league mounts another boycott of championships in the state, a move that could cost the school millions in lost revenue.



House Bill 728, which was introduced Monday and referred to the house’s rules committee on Tuesday, appears to be in response to the ACC pulling eight championship events in response to North Carolina’s since-amended “bathroom bill,” which limited use of public restrooms and changing rooms based on biological sex. The controversial House Bill 2 was replaced last month with one that strikes the language about who could use which public restroom.

House Bill 728 does not mention the bathroom bill boycott specifically. It calls on the two public schools in the league to “immediately” notify the conference it “intends to withdraw” if another boycott is launched and the school would be barred from re-joining the ACC for five years after the boycott ends. The bill does not impact Duke and Wake Forest, both private schools from the state in the ACC.

The ACC announced on March 31 that its Council of Presidents had voted in favor of allowing North Carolina to host future ACC championships after the passing of the new law. The NCAA has announced last week that it will “reluctantly" allow the state to host championship events amid criticism from LGBT and human rights groups who felt the new law --- which ---prevents local governments from enacting anti-discrimination legislation for private and public access until December 2020 --- did not amount to a full repeal of HB2.

"Carolina is proud to be a member of the ACC and our affiliation has benefited both the University and the state," University of North Carolina spokesperson Joanne Peters told USA TODAY Sports. "We are pleased that earlier this month the ACC restored North Carolina’s ability to host tournaments and championships. We will monitor the legislation should it move forward to determine its potential impacts."

The bill sponsored by Bert Jones, Mark Brody, Chris Millis, Justin P. Burr and George G. Cleveland has one major issue: it calls on North Carolina and N.C. State to “segregate all revenue received as a result of that membership” in the ACC until the escrow account equals “at least the amount of any penalty imposed.”

Leaving the ACC would prove costly on two fronts. First, it'd cost the schools a withdrawal payment of three times the total operating budget for the ACC. (The ACC’s annual budget is about $30 million, so that equates to around $90 million.) A change made after a legal dispute that developed after Maryland left for the Big Ten also now requires any university that leaves the ACC to forfeit all media rights through at least 2027.

Jones, Brody, Millis, and Burr did not return messages left by USA TODAY Sports on Wednesday. A staffer for Cleveland said he was unavailable for comment.

The ACC did not immediately provide a comment on the bill.

The proposed legislation would also impact 15 other schools in the University of North Carolina system. Those schools are: Appalachian State, East Carolina, Elizabeth State, Fayetteville State, North Carolina A&T, North Carolina Central, UNC-Asheville, Charlotte, UNC-Greensboro, UNC-Pembroke, UNC-Wilmington, North Carolina School of the Arts, Western Carolina, Winston-Salem State and North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.