House Bill 2 has already cost Charlotte one NBA All-Star Game. Now an expected full-court legal fight over the law puts the city's chances of hosting the 2019 event in serious jeopardy, too.
Legal experts say battles to overturn the law could still be crawling through the courts two years from now, when the NBA could face another decision on whether to find an alternative venue to Charlotte.
"Given the current political situation, I just can't see the General Assembly doing anything about it," said Brian Clarke, a faculty member of the Charlotte School of Law. "A final resolution in the courts is at least two years out. That's cutting it pretty close."
On Thursday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver formally announced that the Charlotte Hornets and the city had lost the 2017 event _ and up to $100 million in economic benefits _ due to the state's refusal to amend or repeal HB2. The law withholds legal protections from LGBT individuals and bans transgender people from using bathrooms and other public facilities that match their sexual identities.
As a consolation prize, the NBA tentatively penned Charlotte's name next to the 2019 All-Star Game _ if the league's concerns about HB2 have been resolved.
"We have had genuine dialogue with the NBA, and they would like nothing more than to return the game to Charlotte," Hornets' marketing officer Peter Guelli said Friday.
As for the uncertainty still posed by HB2, Guelli said the NBA team remains hopeful. "We consider ourselves stewards of Time Warner Cable Arena. Anytime there is a chance that an event with this type of economic impact is available for Charlotte, we feel an obligation to pursue it," he said.
That optimism may prove ephemeral. State leaders have displayed stiffening resistance to the notion of repealing or changing the law _ despite pressure from the NBA, the Atlantic Coast Conference and other athletic, corporate and entertainment groups.
Gov. Pat McCrory, who's locked in a bitter re-election fight with Attorney General Roy Cooper, has made the defense of HB2 a major part of his campaign. The Charlotte Republican has already sued the federal government for threatening to withhold hundreds of millions of school and transportation dollars unless the state repeals the law. And after Silver's announcement, McCrory launched a scathing attack on so-called "selective corporate elite" attempting to undermine the state's right to govern itself.
State Senate President Phil Berger followed suit.
"The suggestion that state leaders should abandon our moral obligation to protect our constituents in order to keep one exhibition basketball game is absurd," he said in a statement.
That appears to leave the fate of the law _ along with Charlotte's chances of hosting an NBA All-Star Game this decade _ in the hands of the courts.
Given the pace of justice and the likelihood of appeals along the way, legal experts said Friday that a final resolution might not be reached until late 2018 or early 2019. At best, that would take place months after the NBA will be expected to choose a 2019 host city.
NBA spokesman Mike Bass could not be reached for comment on Friday.
