The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) plans to still hold its Final Four March Madness games in Indianapolis, Indiana despite Gov. Mike Pence’s (R) decision Thursday to pass a “religious freedom” bill that could allow businesses to refuse to serve same-sex couples because of religious objections.
“The NCAA national office and our members are deeply committed to providing an inclusive environment for all our events,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said in a statement on Thursday, which echoed a previous statement issued before Pence signed the bill. “We are especially concerned about how this legislation could affect our student-athletes and employees. We will work diligently to assure student-athletes competing in, and visitors attending, next week’s Men’s Final Four in Indianapolis are not impacted negatively by this bill. Moving forward, we intend to closely examine the implications of this bill and how it might affect future events as well as our workforce.”
Emmert’s statement came a few hours after Pence signed the bill into law. A number of businesses based in Indiana warned that there could be an exodus or other repercussions if Pence signed the law.
shorter Emmert : “We love the money.”
Gov. Mike Pence (R-eligious Pandering) must be a big fan of Russia. First he sets up Pravda Indiana and now he is copying Putin’s anti-gay law.
What next, will he annex southern Illinois claiming that it is really a part of Indiana?
Well, no final four games for me this year.
True dat; but the larger point is, the NCAA’s got more than enough problems already without taking on board this sort of baggage that Indiana has tacked on to its most massive money maker. The NCAA Tournament brings in over a billion dollars annually, and there’s no way even a thoroughly compromised hack like Emmert is about to put that at risk.
I think the NCAA is making the right call. Changing the venue at this point would only hurt the fans who’ve paid hundreds or thousands of dollars for tickets, reservations, etc. It’s just too late in the game, with the Final Four only two weeks away, to find another empty venue that could hold the same capacity and a city in which there’s not another significant event happening that weekend. The logistics of changing venues make it nearly impossible.
I say this as someone who would LOVE to see UK forced to play as far away from KY as possible.