Some Interesting Complications For The ACC And PAC-12 As The Conference Of Champions Devolves

Someone on Twitter brought up a fascinating point about the ACC’s recently announced plan to accept SMU, Stanford and Cal as expansion schools. As you will see, this does not apply to Stanford or SMU, but as a state university, it certainly would to Cal.

As you may remember, after the “Bathroom bill” became law in North Carolina in 2017, the state of California decided it will not allow state funds to be used to travel to certain states with anti-LGBTQ+ laws.

Among the states that California objects to are Indiana (Notre Dame), Kentucky (Louisville), Georgia (Georgia Tech), Florida (Miami & Florida State), Texas (SMU) and North Carolina (UNC, Duke, NC State and Wake Forest), which would greatly complicate Cal’s travel as an ACC member.

Overall, the ban is now up to 26 states. Here are the states not listed above:

1. Alabama
2. Arizona
3. Arkansas
4. Idaho
5. Iowa
6. Kansas
7. Louisiana
8. Mississippi
9. Missouri
10. Montana
11. Nebraska
12. North Dakota
13. Ohio
14. Oklahoma
15. South Dakota
16. Tennessee
17. Utah
18. West Virginia
19. Wyoming

A rather significant problem, we think you’d agree, and not particularly fair to Cal since Stanford, as a private university, can travel freely.

Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, but with the two Bay Area Pac-12 refugees joining the ACC, the state is now considering repealing the ban.

The bill passed the state house on Monday and now goes to the senate and, if it passes there, heads to Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk for his signature. He says he’ll base his decision on the merits of the bill which means, like all politicians, he wants to see what the potential damage to his career would be first.

Speaking of the PAC-12, as we noted the other day, Oregon State and Washington State filed a legal complaint against the conference, essentially arguing that since the other 10 schools left, they no longer have voting rights and OSU and WSU - henceforth to be called the PAC 2 - wanted an emergency temporary restraining order to keep those schools from voting on PAC-12 business.

Well, so far so good: a judge has ruled in favor of the PAC-2 and barred a meeting scheduled for Wednesday.

Attorney Drew Tulumello said this: “Today’s ruling is an important first step to bring clarity and fairness to Pac-12 governance. The future of the Pac-12 should be controlled by the schools who stay, not those who go.”

This would be even funnier if they win sole voting rights and, say, vote to keep all the bowl and NCAA tournament revenue to themselves.