The University of North Carolina System president and governing board will likely soon have the power to prevent the state’s public universities from switching athletic conferences.
As reported by The News & Observer of Raleigh, a committee of the Board of Governors, which oversees the 16 public universities in the UNC System, voted Wednesday in favor of a policy that requires the chancellors of schools interested in changing athletic conferences to provide “advance notice” of such moves to UNC System president Peter Hans and receive his approval for a corresponding “financial plan” associated with the move.
Under the policy, if Hans approves the university’s financial plan, he would then submit it to the Board of Governors, which could choose to vote on the plan, but would not be required to do so. If the board were to vote against the plan, chancellors would not be able to move forward with a conference move unless they present a new financial plan and receive approval from the president and the board.
According to Korie Dean of The News & Observer, the policy now moves to the consent agenda for the next meeting of the full Board of Governors in February, meaning the board could approve it as part of a package of policies and without individual consideration.
The Atlantic Coast Conference voted last year to expand its membership despite objections by UNC-Chapel Hill and two other league schools. N.C. State initially stood with UNC in its objection to expansion, but flipped its vote, allowing the league to add three schools — Stanford, the University of California and Southern Methodist University.
Florida State University in December filed a lawsuit against the ACC — a day after the ACC sued FSU — in an attempt to leave the conference.
The Board of Governors first considered a policy on conference realignment at a committee meeting in October, according to Dean. "The policy considered at that meeting was similar to the one the committee passed Wednesday, but there are noticeable differences in the new version — namely, giving the board the power to vote on the plans submitted by university chancellors," she wrote. "The previous version indicated the board could 'provide a recommendation' to the universities, but did not outline a process for it to vote on the plans for realignment."
