How The ACC’s Championship Game Move Could Benefit The State of Florida

Now that the ACC is moving their championship games this season out of North Carolina, we look at how Florida could benefit, especially with football.

One day after the NCAA made the decision to remove all championship or tournament events from the state of North Carolina due to a controversial bathroom law regarding the transgender community, the ball was in the ACC’s court Tuesday – and the league decided to follow along.

In a vote of conference members, the league decided to remove the eight scheduled tournaments that were going to take place in the state during the 2016-17 athletic year. While sports like women’s basketball, baseball and soccer will be effected (men’s basketball is already set to play in Brooklyn the next two seasons), the sport that got the most attention was the annual football title game.

Played since 2010 at Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium, the game will be looking for a new home with less than three months until kickoff. In reality, the decision leaves just three options regarding the event.

• Option number one is playing the game at another NFL stadium in the league’s footprint. Atlanta is out of the picture since it has the SEC Championship and the Falcons play the next day. You can also cross off Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville and New York since they all also host an NFL game either Sunday or Monday.

• Option number two would be playing the game at the site of one team participating in the game. It could either be the one with the higher winning percentage or better conference record. If worse comes to worse, this may end up being what takes place.

Option number three is the one where the Sunshine State ends up as the winners. The state of Florida has two viable options when it comes to hosting the championship game (not including Tallahassee if option number two doesn’t take place.

• First off, you have the city of Tampa – which hosted the championship game in 2008 and 2009. As the city is preparing to host the national championship game this season, it would be a perfect appetizer since the ACC champion will likely make it into the College Football Playoff.

• If that doesn’t work, the city of Miami Gardens could serve as a backup since it will be available (the Dolphins are on the road against Baltimore that week and the Miami Hurricanes’ season will be long over by that point). The conference might not be too happy with a team having to travel all the way to Miami, but it could work with the conference’s tie in to the Orange Bowl.

The city of Orlando, which already hosted a massive game between FSU and Ole Miss (and will host two bowl games this year inside Camping World Stadium, including one with an ACC tie in), host the first weekend of the state high school football championships that weekend and might be out of the running. If those could be moved, however, than Orlando might become the new leader.

It’s not the best timing and you kind of wish that the conference would have decided about this a lot sooner. But, the ACC does have options and will do what is in the best interest of the teams that may be playing in December’s title game.