UNC, NC State teams would have to play each other every year under bill. Will it advance?
A bill filed in the North Carolina House of Representatives would require several athletic teams at UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State University to play each other annually, echoing a similar effort that stalled quickly in the House last year.
Rep. Brenden Jones, a Tabor City Republican who serves as the House majority leader, on Thursday introduced House Bill 469, titled the “Restoring Rivalries Act.” On X, Jones said he introduced the bill “in the spirit of March Madness.”
“Our collegiate rivalries are part of our state’s DNA, and this bill ensures it stays that way!” Jones wrote.
The bill effectively preserves the status quo of regular meetings within the ACC, requiring that the games continue even if the schools end up in separate conferences.
The bill would require “high-enrollment” colleges in the UNC System, which the bill specifically defines as UNC and NC State, to “regularly compete against one another in eligible sports.” Those sports, according to the bill, are football, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball and softball.
In football and basketball, per the bill, the teams of each school would play each other at least once per year. In baseball and softball, the teams would play a series of three games against each other.
The terms of the bill would be effective with the 2026-27 academic year, if it becomes law.
The required games between UNC and NC State in all of the sports specified by the bill would have been met under the schedules for the teams’ most recent or ongoing seasons. For instance, the men’s basketball teams played each other twice — at the Lenovo Center on Jan. 11, and at the Smith Center on Feb. 19. The football teams generally play each other in their last regular-season game each year, with last year’s game taking place at Kenan Stadium on Nov. 30.
Those games met existing ACC requirements that the teams play twice a year in basketball and once a year in football.
But as the college sports landscape continues to change and athletic conferences grow, shrink and realign, there is a possibility that — at least someday in the future — UNC and NC State, both founding members of the ACC, could find themselves in different conferences.
Conversations about UNC, in particular, potentially leaving the ACC have ramped up in recent years, especially as Florida State and Clemson sued, then settled with, the conference. Under the settlement agreement reached by those parties, the financial penalties for leaving the conference will drop significantly over the next several years.
HB 469 references as much, with its text reading, “recent conference realignments driven primarily by financial incentives have disrupted traditional rivalries, diminished regional competition, and eroded the historic significance of intrastate athletic contests.”
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Further, the bill reads, “the General Assembly recognizes the critical importance of maintaining and strengthening these historic rivalries, which provide economic benefits to local businesses, increase fan engagement, and sustain the integrity of collegiate athletics within the State.”
Last year, the UNC System Board of Governors approved a policy requiring chancellors of public universities to provide “advance notice” to the system president if they seek to leave their athletic conferences.
Theoretically, HB 469 would ensure the Tar Heels and Wolfpack continue to play each other if one or the other leaves the ACC, likely in non-conference match ups.
But whether the effort will be successful, particularly given the failures of similar efforts in the past, remains to be seen.
The bill is similar to legislation that the House considered, but ultimately did not approve or advance to the Senate, last year. That effort, which would have created mandates for UNC and NC State to regularly schedule games against Appalachian State, UNC Charlotte and East Carolina, generated considerable conversation among legislators, as well as those in the sports world, but was not heard on the floor after former House Speaker Tim Moore declared the effort dead.
Previously, in 1987, an effort in the state legislature to require UNC, NC State, Duke and Wake Forest to regularly play ECU in football was “widely derided in newspapers at the time” and did not make it out of committee.
Responses on X to Jones’ post about the bill were mixed Thursday. One user called the effort “a waste of time and money,” while another thanked Jones for introducing the measure and noted that the UNC-NC State rivalry is “part of the NC fabric.”
Jones defended the bill, writing that it “protects” the revenue that the rivalry brings to the state.
Senate leader Phil Berger, an Eden Republican, hadn’t heard about Jones’ bill when asked about it after a Senate session on Thursday.
“We do a lot of things here. I’m not sure we need to be setting ball schedules,” Berger said. “Maybe we will. We’ll see.”
This story was originally published March 20, 2025 at 12:19 PM.
