by , The Courier-Journal –

The NCAA is relocating seven championship events, including the opening two rounds of the men’s basketball tournament, out of North Carolina over the state’s controversial bathroom law.Time_Sports

Kentucky’s ability to host college athletic championships could be at risk if NCAA and Atlantic Coast Conference precedent stands and should a pair of House bills introduced last week become law.

The NCAA announced in September that it would move seven of its postseason events from North Carolina in response to the state’s “religious freedom” bill known as HB2, and the Greensboro, N.C.-based ACC followed suit by moving eight of its neutral-site championships from the state, including relocating the 2017 conference baseball tournament to Louisville Slugger Field,

How those precedents would affect Kentucky’s opportunities to host events – including the 2017 and 2018 NCAA women’s basketball regionals in at Rupp Arena – remains to be seen as a pair of similar bills work their way through the legislature. The NCAA has not responded to The Courier-Journal’s request for comment, while an ACC spokesperson referred to the organization’s previously issued statement that reaffirmed ACC members’ “collective commitment to uphold the values of equality, diversity, inclusion and non-discrimination.”

House Bill 106, filed last week by Rep Rick Nelson, a Democrat from Middlesboro, would require Kentucky public schools, state universities, state government and local governments to designate bathrooms they control “only be used by persons based on their biological sex.” House Bill 105, also filed by Nelson, is a so-called “religious freedom” bill that would generally prevent the government from forcing businesses to provide goods or services that would run contrary to the owner’s religious beliefs.

Similar versions of both bills have been filed in recent years in Kentucky but were blocked by the Democrat-controlled House. With Republicans seizing a supermajority in the House in November elections, chances of the bills passing have increased, though Gov. Matt Bevin and other Republican leaders have signaled the bills are not among their top priorities in the current 30-day session.

Although the NCAA has yet to respond to The Courier-Journal’s request for comment about the Kentucky bill’s possible effects on the state hosting future championship events, an NCAA spokesperson did recently decline comment to USA Today on a similar bathroom bill.

In September, the NCAA announced it was moving seven previously awarded championship events for the 2016-17 academic year from North Carolina as a response to the state’s controversial law that prevented cities and counties from passing protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity and required public schools to mandate bathrooms only be used by people based on their biological sex.

In a news release announcing the decision, the NCAA stressed the decision to move events from North Carolina was reached because of “at least” four factors, including the law making it “unlawful to use a restroom different from the gender on one’s birth certificate, regardless of gender identity.” The NCAA also noted the North Carolina law invalidated any local laws that treated sexual orientation as a protected class or that were designed to prevent discrimination against LGBT individuals and provided legal protection for government officials to refuse services to the LGBT community. Five states had also prohibited travel to North Carolina for public employees and representatives of public institutions as a result of the law, leading to fears that student-athletes and coaches from those states could be included in those travel bans.

An NCAA women’s basketball tournament regional is currently scheduled for Rupp Arena in Lexington in 2017 and 2018. The University of Kentucky hosted a women’s regional there in 2016 and has hosted the men’s basketball tournament at Rupp 12 times in the arena’s 40-year history. The KFC Yum! Center in Louisville has hosted the men’s basketball tournament three times.

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Prompted by a reporter’s question about the desire to push through transgender bathroom legislation Governor Matt Bevin said that there is no need to create more legislation and regulations.

NCAA tournament sites for many sports, including the first and second rounds of the women’s basketball tournament and baseball regionals and super regionals, are rewarded based on teams’ regular-season performance. The NCAA did not prohibit North Carolina schools from hosting tournament games in those scenarios.

In April 2016, the NCAA directed cities interested in hosting future NCAA championships to complete a questionnaire providing information about any “local anti-discrimination laws, provisions for refusal of services or other facility-specific information.” As the NCAA continued to evaluate those responses, it delayed the announcement of future championship sites, which usually comes in early December, to 2017.

In the ACC’s September statement, league commissioner John Swofford said the conference’s presidents made it clear that the “core values of this league are of the utmost importance, and the opposition to any form of discrimination is paramount.”

The decision to move the ACC’s neutral-site championships out of North Carolina was “one of principle,” Swofford said in the statement while acknowledging that moving the host sites negatively impacted many individuals and communities in the Tar Heel State.

“Hopefully there will be opportunities beyond 2016-17 for North Carolina neutral sites to be awarded championships,” Swofford said.