The fans aren't so smart... it's a good thing we've got grown ups making these decisions. The Big Ten Academics Alliance nets 10 billion dollars a year in research money with is 10× more money than TV money.

North Carolina would be an also-ran in either conference in football but would be competitive in other sports. Which conference would depend on other issues.

B1G is taking FSu and the other are Carolina Dreaming

a) Coming into this realignment, the UNC admin preferred the B1G (and were winning), but the fans/donors preferred the SEC. The B1G offers the far better academic association and sponsors more sports. The SEC offers regionality and more attractive matchups. UNC was still leaning B1G until ~9 months ago when the fan/donor faction has heavily swung UNC to the SEC. The B1G is waning, the SEC is waxing. b) MARYLAND was in severe financial distress and had no competing offer from the SEC. UMD now reeks of apathy, which says go SEC. c) The BTAA is irrelevant. Grants are not pooled/shared at the conference level. d) Going SEC would provide far better recruiting advantages than the B1G. The P2 consolidation will have a parity effect. You guys think too much from within the dying P5 rather than from the future P2.

Buckeye fan here. You fellows obviously aren't in touch with how expansion works in the B1G. Any expansion deal has to be additive. The two schools at the top of the B1G's target list are (1) Notre Dame and (2) FSU. B1G expansion is all about football. UNC doesn't have the football eyeballs to drive a B1G expansion deal. We are down to the short strokes. If you were paying close attention, you heard Sankey say this the other day. FSU will be #19. I believe Miami will be the Plus 1--#20. Sooner later, The Fighting Irish will get squeezed into joining the B1G as #21. I have no idea what school the Plus 1 will be, but the ND/Stanford deal Warren put on the table before he left for the NFL wouldn't shock me. The original concept for the West Wing was four to six schools. Stanford would be the #1 research school in the B1G. Petitti could stop at twenty-two. However, exploring the possibility of a B1G footprint in The Lone Star State looks awful tempting to me. If the SEC can sort out the UNC/NC State imbroglio, they will add UNC. I can't see the SEC getting past twenty schools.

UNC thinks too highly of itself. It was 7-5 with Drake Maye as their QB. They're probably be 4-8 this year without him. Furthermore, since UNC is a basketball-first school, throw them in the Big 12. Remember, UNC trustee man, the Big 12 is a higher revenue league than the ACC.

Jim is right, none of this has anything to do with academics - it's all about making as much $ as possible in FB.

NC will ignore the wishes of its fans, probably screw-up by making the same decision as FSU did and decline the chance to join the SEC. At the time, FSU believed joining the ACC would lift its basketball program and they’d have an easier path in football. Sounds reasonable but they completely ignored the fact their corp sponsors, nat’l media, fans nor football recruits don’t care about playing sleepy games against Wake, Ga Tech, Duke, and anybody else excluding Clemson. Same thing would happen in Big Ten with NC where their only big games would be OSU and Mich. The rest would be forgettable.

Who cares? Their FB program is a joke

WTF is everyone taking about UNC for.. Did miss something they haven't been relevant in football since 70s/80s. Wake & VaTech have won the conference in football in THIS century and Nobody is talking about them having leverage..🤔🤔

UNC fan here- my vote is SEC

All of this is wishful thinking by the other conferences, and anti-ACC propaganda UNC is a Basketball 1st school, and given the performance of ACC teams in the NCAA tournament there is no conference that's universally more powerful.

FSU wants to be in the SEC .... why do you have a mic