ACC moves its football championship to Orlando after ditching North Carolina over HB2
This is a classy move by the Atlantic Coast Conference, which is based in Greensboro, North Carolina, and has relocated one of its championship football games to Orlando over the discriminatory HB2 law. Specifically, the event will be held at Orlando’s Camping World Stadium, which housed an assistance center for victims and their family members following Orlando’s mass shooting at the gay night club Pulse. Mike Barber writes:
The league officially announced Thursday, as expected, that it has moved the 2016 football championship game to Orlando’s Camping World Stadium, home of the Russell Athletic Bowl and the Citrus Bowl.
The game will still be played Saturday night, Dec. 3, but moved to Orlando from Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium because of North Carolina’s State Bill 2, a law that places restrictions on transgendered people. The NCAA and ACC pulled all of their neutral site championships out of North Carolina. [...]
The league was founded in 1953 — at the Sedgefield Inn near Greensboro — and four of its seven charter members (Duke, North Carolina, N.C. State and Wake Forest) are in North Carolina.
What a statement by the ACC and a really nice boost for Orlando. Other ACC events are moving too but their new locations have yet to be announced.