If we wanted to stump for UNC rather than Tech or any of the others, we could easily make the case.
Demographics:
- The B1G is not yet in the Southeast. North Carolina represents a whole new region for the conference.
- 10 million state population is larger than that of every state represented in the conference other than Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio.
- Three metro areas over 1 million (Charlotte, RDU, Greensboro).
- Major transportation hub in Charlotte.
- From this chart (
https://alumni.unc.edu/PDF/WhereWeLive.pdf), there are something like 225-250K Carolina alumni in the U.S. right now, which obviously doesn't cover family members, non-alum fans, bandwagoners, etc. Of that amount, of course the most stay in-state, but the next highest totals are in Virginia, Georgia, Florida, California and New York (in that order) - all places where the conference would have a strategic interest in adding more eyeballs and TVs.
- The Research Triangle is one of the fastest growing STEM regions in the country and could provide a nice recruiting tie-in: look at all the companies who are now part of the B1G footprint!
Prestige/Education:
- AAU university - that's a key, as has been mentioned.
- It's a state flagship school.
- US News has it at #30 among national universities, behind only Berkeley, UCLA, Virginia and Michigan among public universities.
- UNC basketball is one of the premiere programs in the country. No one questions this.
- The football program, for all of its problems on-field and off over the years, has had 23 NFL players drafted since 2010. Ohio State has had 28. Iowa has had 22. Michigan has had 17. MSU has had 13. Wisconsin has had 8. We get the point.
- UNC women's soccer has won 20 ACC championships, and 22 NCAA championships. It is the best program in the country. Their men's soccer has also won 2 national titles. Their baseball program is very strong and would be a shot in the arm for a poor conference that we have. Both men's and women's lacrosse are really good, which is a nice thought for what is probably the fastest-growing college sport and for a conference that has started to assert itself as a prime destination for lacrosse (Go U!). Even their field hockey team has 6 national titles. It's a really, really good athletic department, top to bottom, if we're just looking at on-field performance.
The paper classes scandal was a big deal. They would need to prove that they're clean and compliant before an invitation would be extended, especially if Delany, a Tar Heel himself, were the one making the call. But if the next round of expansion isn't for another 5-10 years, I could see it. And if, at that time, we're looking for two schools to go to 16, grabbing UNC would make Duke or UVA much more interested, I would imagine, doubling down in the region and adding one of two more excellent schools. Given Notre Dame's intransigence (wouldn't it be awesome to snag some of the best ACC teams away from their new ACCish affiliation?) and Texas' greed, UNC is certainly a feasible option.