Emmert to Doyel on RFRA: 'If we have to move events, we'll do it'

We are America's piñata, and have been since Gov. Pence signed the religious-freedom bill into law last week. Good law, bad law, you can debate that among yourselves. But what has happened since Gov. Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act is without debate. America is torn by this bill, unsure whether to yell at Indiana — or laugh at us.

In the middle of this storm, unusual in that this storm isn't of its own making, is the NCAA. Seriously, what are the odds? Indiana opens the door to the possibility of legally protected discrimination, and it does so the week before the Final Four — and all its noise, noise, noise — comes to Indianapolis.

NCAA president Mark Emmert will hold his annual Final Four press conference on Thursday. Anyone with an agenda, and that's pretty much everyone these days, will be calling for the microphone to ask Emmert when the NCAA plans to move the 2016 women's Final Four — and the 2021 men's Final Four — out of Indianapolis. For that matter, Mr. Emmert, when will the NCAA pack up its headquarters at White River State Park and leave Indiana in the rear-view mirror?

"I hate to see the Final Four, which you fully appreciate as this extraordinary event — second only maybe to the Super Bowl, and certainly the dominant collegiate event in America — get caught up in a political debate," Emmert told me Monday. "This is a very, very important political issue. Make no mistake about it. It's why we take it so seriously. But it would have been preferable obviously to not have it connected to the Final Four."

But they are joined hideously at the hip, like something out of Barnum & Bailey. This week will be a freak show, a combination of everything right about American sports and everything wrong about American political discourse. And one will be used to amplify the agenda of the other.

"Horrible timing," said Park Tudor girls basketball coach Rob Albright, the former director of corporate development for the Indy Partnership, a regional economic development partnership representing the nine central Indiana counties. "Indy is going to be dragged through the mud all week because the national media will be here screaming that the Final Four should never come back."

Said Emmert: "It's already an enormously complex undertaking that our people and the city do a great job with. And this complicates it."

There is the need for additional security at Lucas Oil Stadium and other Final Four venues, what with protests possible, even likely. There are conversations between Emmert and Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard, who share a similar view of the RFRA and the damage it will do — because perception is reality, and the perception of Indiana right now is near an all-time low — and Emmert doesn't have time for those conversations. Nor does he have time for media demands and all the questions he and his staff are having to answer about the fate of future Final Fours and the NCAA's headquarters itself in Indianapolis. They're busy enough, you know? It's the Final Four.

But America's Crossroads has become America's Piñata, and everyone has a bat. Charles Barkley has spoken out against the RFRA. So has Reggie Miller. And when they speak out, it's not just against the RFRA but against a state that would allow such a thing. This has been our lot in life since Thursday, and while time often calms the hysteria, time is not in our favor this week. Final Four games don't begin until Saturday. The national title game is Monday. That's a lot of time to fill, and the RFRA's impact on college sports will do nicely.

This is the biggest Final Four in recent memory, what with Kentucky bringing its 38-0 bid at perfection to a group that includes two more regional powerhouses (Michigan State and Wisconsin) and, gulp, Duke. This Final Four is a godsend to the NCAA, and Mark Emmert on Monday spent 15 minutes on live television with ESPNU and another 15 or so minutes on the phone with me. And not once was he asked about Kentucky. Or Duke.

Or basketball.

Emmert was asked about the fate of the 2016 women's Final Four, and at one point he said — not about the 2016 event specifically, but about future NCAA events set to be held in Indiana — the following:

"We're going to have to sit down and make judgments about whether or not (the RFRA) changes the environment for us doing our work, and us holding events. We're deeply committed to the whole notion of inclusion. We have a very diverse membership. We value that very, very highly. We've got to work in and we've got to host our events in an environment that makes that possible. …

"We don't want to, because of political activity, disrupt an event that's been in the making for so long, (and now) you've changed the experience for the student-athletes. But if we have to move events, we'll do it."

There's a line Emmert very clearly wasn't ready to cross on Monday, any line that had the words "RFRA" and "goodbye, Indiana," but he wants you, me and — most of all — the Indiana legislature to believe the NCAA is serious about approaching that line and taking a hard look at what's on the other side.

"We have to look and see what the legislature does or doesn't do in the next few days," he said. "It's premature to talk about what we would do in that regard, but it's important to know we're very serious about this."

How serious, I wanted to know. It's a hypothetical, it's a guess, but tell me how serious. The NCAA has been headquartered downtown since 1999. Might you leave us?

"We have to, like most folks, be in a place where we can attract and retain and support a workforce that is highly diverse and values an inclusive environment," he said. "We're a membership association, and those members happen to be colleges and universities, and they happen to have pretty strong views on this — and so do I. We have to make sure we're in a place that fits those values and that workforce."

How serious, I said again. Your headquarters have been here 16 years. How serious.

"Indianapolis has been great for us, and we hope it continues to be," Mark Emmert said. "But we have to do what we have to do."

Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.