Now that it's late February, everybody's favorite offseason topic came up yesterday: conference realignment! The latest rumors have the Big Ten in talks with North Carolina, Virginia and Georgia Tech.
With the Big Ten Network, it's all about population. Expanding into new states makes sense, particularly in the south, where the population of the country is shifting. In terms of population in their geographic footprint, the ACC is tops of all conferences. These numbers are from Wikipedia for the 2010 census and include Maryland with the Big Ten, and Louisville, Syracuse, Notre Dame and Pitt with the ACC.