The NBA has reached an agreement to allow the city of Charlotte to host the 2019 NBA All-Star game after it was recently pulled from the city in 2017. The game itself was pulled entirely because of the bill HB2, a house bill that puts restrictions on the LGBTQ community with the use of restrooms. HB2 has been a major contributor to the millions of dollars lost in North Carolina recently also seeing many other sporting events leaving the area including the NCAA tournament.

With the recent election of Democratic Governor Roy Cooper, things have been on the rise for NC with Cooper and his administration working hard to slowly repeal HB2. Recently they reached a deal to repeal part of the bill itself, creating wiggle room for NC to meet NCAA and NBA requests. Now the NCAA and NBA have both allowed their respective games to return to NC starting in 2019. Sporting events aren’t the only events NC has lost due to the bill; Concerts are the other major events that were lost including Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, Ringo Starr, Boston, Cyndi Lauper, Mumford and Sons, Duran Duran also protested the bill openly at their Charlotte concert. Clearly after time the Bill had become a major liability to the state as it cost our state roughly 400 million dollars. Film studios such as Lionsgate pulled their activity in NC costing about 88 million dollars. From all the events being pulled it also cost the state over 1,000 jobs. As the facts state this bill has clearly done way more harm than good, but a new era has arrived with Roy Cooper and his administration has made it a goal of theirs to fully repeal the House Bill.

With the election of Governor Cooper and the slow repeal of HB2 North Carolina seems to be on the rise lately and a new day seems to be dawning in the south. North Carolina got back two very prestigious events in the All-Star game and both the NCAA tournament and the ACC tournament, which will surely bring back all the lost jobs and revenue. Hopefully this will help our state return to its respected levels that once existed.