HBO Sports Analyst Bryant Gumbel opposes HB2

By Austin Stallings
Journalism Intern

HBO's Real Sports host Bryant Gumbel took two minutes of his show this week to speak directly to three powerful white, straight, cisgender men in sports about discrimination in North Carolina.

This rhetoric comes in response to HB2, North Carolina’s controversial bill requiring transgender individuals to use the bathroom of their biologically assigned gender.

Gumble called specifically on the NBA's Adam Silver to move the league's 2017 All-Star game; NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to move next month's owners meeting; and NCAA president Mark Emmert to move future postseason events currently slated for the state (next year there are men's Division I basketball tournament games scheduled for the state).

"Since it's never too late to do the right thing," Gumbel said, "here's hoping all those guys may yet lead by showing lawmakers in North Carolina and other states considering such measure that their bigotry has a price. Here's hoping they come to understand what smarter people have often said: prejudice tolerated is intolerance encouraged."

Gumbell joins former NBA super star Charles Barkley on a list of people pushing for sporting events to relocate.

The Gayly 4/21/2016 @ 5:00 p.m