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.

Total Population in Geographic Footprint:
ACC: 101,796,866
SEC: 92,237,058
Big Ten: 84,388,111
Pac 12: 63,433,919
Big 12: 37,689,527

If the ACC ever wants to start their own ACC Network, they would obviously be in a position to have a lot of subscribers.  Adding Pitt and Syracuse increased the population in ACC states by over 32 million.  The ACC would still be #1 even if you subtract Notre Dame from their list of schools.

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