ACC GREENSBORO, NC – MARCH 16: A general view of the Duke Blue Devils versus Virginia Cavaliers during the championship game of the 2014 Men’s ACC Basketball Tournament at Greensboro Coliseum on March 16, 2014 in Greensboro, North Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

The ACC announced its championship schedule for the 2017-18 season on Thursday, marking the conference’s return to North Carolina with eight neutral-site championships that will be hosted in the state. Most notably, the ACC football championship game will return to Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte after moving to Orlando last season. The women’s basketball tournament will also return to the Greensboro Coliseum, although the men’s tournament will finish out its two-year deal at Barclays Center in Brooklyn next March.

When the North Carolina legislature passed HB2 in March 2016 restricting the rights of the state’s LGBTQ residents, the ACC moved 10 neutral-site championships out of North Carolina. The NCAA also moved 2017 NCAA Tournament games from North Carolina to South Carolina because of the bill and threatened extending their ban for five more years if nothing changed. In the world of pro sports, the NBA relocated its All-Star Game from Charlotte to New Orleans.

While the law’s repeal in March seemed like a victory for the LGBTQ community at first, the government’s replacement, HB142, is actually just as bad. The new law does not allow state universities to protect trans students and prevents cities from protecting their own LGBTQ members.

When the law was first passed two months ago, here’s what the Charlotte Observer had to say:

House Bill 142 literally does not do one thing to protect the LGBT community and locks in HB2’s most basic and offensive provision. It repeals HB2 in name only and will not satisfy any business or organization that is truly intolerant of an anti-gay environment and of a state that codifies discrimination.

Even though nothing really changed, the NCAA pretty quickly reversed its stance, albeit “reluctantly,” to allow future championship events to take place in North Carolina. By mid-April, the NCAA announced North Carolina would host first weekend NCAA Tournament games in 2020 and 2021, among other events.

While the ACC men’s basketball tournament remains in Brooklyn for 2018, it will return to Charlotte in 2019 and then Greensboro in 2020.

[ACC]

About Jesse Kramer

Jesse is a writer and editor for The Comeback. He has also worked for SI.com and runs The Catch and Shoot, a college basketball website based in Chicago. He is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow Jesse on Twitter @Jesse_Kramer.