NC Governor: Deal to Keep NBA All-Star Game in Charlotte ‘Sabotaged’

The Republican governor of North Carolina says he struck a deal with the NBA to keep the 2017 All-Star Game in Charlotte but blames members of his own party in the legislature and a Democrat running for his office for killing the agreement.

Governor Pat McCrory claims he agreed to create a commission on discrimination, conform North Carolina discrimination law with federal law, and allow lawsuits alleging discrimination to again move forward in state court. He explained in an interview with the Charlotte Observer, “Those were the three major agreements the NBA and the leadership of the legislature agreed upon.”

He says members of his own party in the legislature “sabotaged” the plan and Attorney General Roy Cooper undermined it by demanding a full repeal of House Bill 2, which restricts multiple-occupancy restrooms on state property to members of the biological sex indicated on the door, rather than welcome amendments moving law further to his liking.

Despite efforts to assuage the NBA, the league announced a decision to pull the annual midseason exhibition from Charlotte last week. New Orleans leads contenders looking to gain from Charlotte’s loss.

“He was getting a great deal of pressure from the national organization pushing this left-wing agenda,” McCrory says in the interview of NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, “and they were putting pressure on their corporate entities, many of whom had a solid misunderstanding of what our law actually did.”