Emmert: NCAA will decide next week whether to return to North Carolina

NCAA leaders need a few days to digest the new law that will replace North Carolina’s so-called “bathroom bill” before deciding whether to bring March Madness and other championship sporting events back to the Tar Heel state.

As for other potential political hot spots, such as Texas where lawmakers are considering a similar bill and where the Final Four will be next year, the NCAA is in no rush to weigh in.

A few hours before NCAA President Mark Emmert gave his annual pre-Final Four news conference, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper signed a bill that rolled back HB2. The law had required transgender people to use public bathrooms that correspond to the sex on their birth certificate. It also excluded gender identity and sexual orientation from statewide antidiscrimination protections.

The law prompted the NCAA, NBA, Atlantic Coast Conference and other businesses and popular music acts like Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam to pull out of North Carolina.

The new bill drops the rule on transgender bathroom use. But it says local governments cannot pass new nondiscrimination protections for workplaces, hotels and restaurants until December 2020. It has its critics. Gay and transgender rights activists complained that the measure still denies them protection from discrimination, and they are demanding nothing less than full repeal.

“I’m personally very pleased that they have a bill to debate and discuss,” Emmert said. “The politics of this in North Carolina are obviously very, very difficult. But they have passed a bill now and it will be a great opportunity for our board to sit and debate and discuss it.”

In response to HB2, the NCAA relocated seven of its sanctioned championship events out of North Carolina over the last year, including first-round games of this men’s basketball tournament being moved from Greensboro to Greenville, South Carolina.

Emmert said the NCAA’s board of directors will meet over the next several days with legal analysts. A decision about whether North Carolina sites will be considered as event hosts needs to be made by early next week, Emmert said.