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130-640: The SouthEastern Lacrosse Conference (SELC) is a collegiate lacrosse club league based in the Southeastern United States. In 1988, the SELC was founded to provide for organized, regional college level lacrosse competition and to provide an outlet for high school players in the Southeast to play at the collegiate level. Since its inception, the SELC membership has expanded dramatically due to the explosive growth of high school and youth lacrosse in

260-459: A "counter" as "an individual who is receiving institutional financial aid that is countable against the aid limitations in a sport." The number of scholarships that Division I members may award in each sport is listed below. In this table, scholarship numbers for head-count sports are indicated without a decimal point ; for equivalency sports, they are listed with a decimal point, with a trailing zero if required. The NCAA also has rules specifying

390-435: A BCS bowl game. The highest ranked champion of any non-AQ conference received an AQ bid if they ranked in the top 12 of the final BCS poll or ranked in the top 16 and higher than a champion of an AQ conference. The conferences in this group were: The BCS faced several controversies throughout its tenure, driven largely by teams and fans dissatisfied at being left out of the championship game. The presence of two SEC teams in

520-685: A conference and show the NCAA it has the financial ability to support a D-I program. Division I athletic programs generated $ 8.7 billion in revenue in the 2009–10 academic year. Men's teams provided 55%, women's teams 15%, and 30% was not categorized by sex or sport. Football and men's basketball are usually a university's only profitable sports, and are called "revenue sports". From 2008 to 2012, 205 varsity teams were dropped in NCAA Division I – 72 for women and 133 for men, with men's tennis, gymnastics and wrestling hit particularly hard. In

650-756: A decimal point. Numbers for equivalency sports are indicated with a decimal point, with a trailing zero if needed. Notes: The following table lists the men's individual D-I sports with at least 1,000 participating athletes. Sports are ranked by number of athletes. D-I college wrestling has lost almost half of its programs since 1982. The following table lists the women's individual D-I sports with at least 1,000 participating athletes. Sports are ranked by number of athletes. NCAA Division I schools have broadcasting contracts that showcase their more popular sports — typically football and men's basketball — on network television and in basic cable channels. These contracts can be quite lucrative, particularly for D-I schools from

780-584: A football-only move.   Indicates a non-football move. This list includes all institutions that joined or have announced that they will join the ACC, Big 12, Pac-12, Big 10, or SEC after the establishment of the Bowl Championship Series in 1998, and that had previously been independent or had affiliated with a non-power conference. It also includes all institutions that joined the original Big East between 1998 and 2013, and teams that joined

910-422: A later vote of the league's school presidents and athletic directors and has since increased to 45. The Patriot League only began awarding football scholarships in the 2013 season, with the first scholarships awarded only to incoming freshmen. Before the conference began its transition to scholarship football, athletes receiving scholarships in other sports were ineligible to play football for member schools. Since

1040-535: A major influence on collegiate athletics conference membership, and athletic conference membership can impact a university's fundraising, academics, and overall reputation. Membership in the Association of American Universities (AAU), a 71-member organization of research universities in the United States and Canada, has frequently been discussed as a factor in conference realignment, particularly for

1170-635: A near-complete membership turnover that saw the conference stripped of all but two of its football-sponsoring members. The two remaining football-sponsoring schools, Idaho and New Mexico State , played the 2013 season as FBS independents before becoming football-only members of the Sun Belt Conference in 2014. Both left Sun Belt football in 2018, with Idaho downgrading to FCS status and adding football to its all-sports Big Sky Conference membership and New Mexico State becoming an FBS independent. The WAC added two more football-sponsoring schools with

1300-565: A power conference opponent for such purposes; the Big Ten and SEC also count Army as such an opponent. Though not required to do so, all Power Four conferences hold conference championship games following the conclusion of the regular season and prior to the College Football Playoff. The power conferences previously each had two divisions and matched the winner of each division in the conference championship game, but all of

1430-477: A power conference. In basketball and some other sports, the Division I programs that are not part of the power conferences are often referred to as " mid-major " programs, although the appropriateness of the term has been criticized since some mid-major programs have resources equal to that of some power conference programs. Most notably, Gonzaga , a member of the mid-major West Coast Conference but set to join

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1560-635: A proposed private tournament that would have invited such teams. By contrast, the NCAA did not use this method of setting the field for the Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament , which it launched in the 2023–24 season as a direct parallel to the NIT. It instead followed the pre-2024 NIT practice of inviting all regular-season conference champions that failed to make the NCAA tournament, if otherwise eligible for postseason play. The overall institutional profiles and academic prestige of colleges and universities have

1690-410: A specific bowl game bid for which the conference has a tie-in. Some conferences have numbers in their names but this often has no relation to the number of member institutions in the conference. The Big Ten Conference did not formally adopt the "Big Ten" name until 1987, but unofficially used that name when it had 10 members from 1917 to 1946, and again from 1949 forward. However, it has continued to use

1820-830: A substantial number of players in Championship Subdivision programs are on full scholarships. A former difference was that FCS schools had a limit of 30 players that could be provided with financial aid in a given season, while FBS schools were limited to 25 such additions per season. These limits were suspended in 2020 before being completely eliminated for both subdivisions in 2023. Finally, FCS schools are limited to 95 individuals participating in preseason practices, as opposed to 105 at FBS schools (the three service academies that play FBS football are exempt from preseason practice player limits by NCAA rule). A few Championship Subdivision conferences are composed of schools that offer no athletic scholarships at all, most notably

1950-712: A team from that conference won the national championship as determined by the BCS or the College Football Playoff, while a ^ indicates a team from that conference was the runner-up in the national championship game. Statistics reflect conference membership at the time of the game. Note that the American filled the Big East 's automatic bid in 2013 . Ten "non-AQ" teams appeared in the nine following BCS games, with an overall record of 5-3: Of these appearances, all were via automatic qualifying bids, except Boise State's participation in

2080-567: A team in the CFP for seven years contributed to the exodus of most of its programs following the 2023 season. Bowl games declined in prestige as more focus went to the playoff, and even the New Year's Six bowls frequently saw top players opt out. Like the BCS, the new system endured a series of controversies related to teams being left out of the championship process, both among the Power Five and

2210-573: A title game, the NCAA Division I Football Championship . As of the 2018 season, the tournament begins with 24 teams; 10 conference champions that received automatic bids, and 14 teams selected at-large by a selection committee. The postseason tournament traditionally begins on Thanksgiving weekend in late November. When I-AA was formed 46 years ago in 1978, the playoffs included just four teams for its first three seasons, doubling to eight teams for one season in 1981. From 1982 to 1985, there

2340-535: A way to match up teams from distant regions of the country that did not otherwise play. In 1936, the Associated Press began its weekly poll of prominent sports writers, ranking all of the nation's college football teams. Since there was no national championship game, the final version of the AP poll was used to determine who was crowned the national champion of college football. The first college football game

2470-525: Is considered an FBS member for scheduling purposes. The newest full FBS members are Jacksonville State , James Madison , and Sam Houston , which completed the transition from FCS prior to the 2024 season . The next school to become a full FBS member is Kennesaw State , which joined Conference USA (CUSA) in 2024 and will become a full FBS member a year later. Delaware and Missouri State are set to join CUSA in 2025 and become full FBS members in 2026. Since

2600-636: Is the Atlantic Coast Conference . For the first 60 years after its 1953 founding, the ACC consisted entirely of schools in Atlantic Coast states. However, in 2013 , the conference added three new schools, two of which ( Pittsburgh and, for non-football sports, Indiana-based Notre Dame ) were in states without an Atlantic shoreline. The following year saw the ACC add another non-Atlantic school in Louisville . Then, in 2023 ,

2730-618: Is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States , which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athletic powers, with large budgets, more elaborate facilities and more athletic scholarships than Division II and Division III as well as many smaller schools committed to the highest level of intercollegiate competition. This level

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2860-408: The 2012 BCS National Championship Game brought the opposition to the BCS to a head, and helped spur the adoption of the College Football Playoff beginning with the 2014 season. Like the BCS, the four-team College Football Playoff took place after the conference championship games and contemporaneously with several other bowl games. It rotated among six bowl games, with two bowl games used each year as

2990-407: The 2016 season , all FBS conferences have been allowed to conduct a championship game that does not count against the limit of 12 regular-season contests. Under the current rules, most recently changed in advance of the 2022 season, conferences have complete freedom to determine the participants in their championship games. From 2016 to 2021, FBS rules allowed such a game to be held either (1) between

3120-457: The 2022 season , with all participating in one of 14 conferences. The "I-AA" designation was dropped by the NCAA in 2006, although it is still informally and commonly used. FCS teams are limited to 63 players on scholarship (compared to 85 for FBS teams) and usually play an 11-game schedule (compared to 12 games for FBS teams). The FCS determines its national champion through an NCAA-sanctioned single-elimination bracket tournament , culminating in

3250-569: The 2023 season ; the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC now form the Power Four , with further suggestions that the Big Ten and SEC – the two conferences with the largest media contracts and many of the most prestigious programs – currently form a "Power Two" tier above the ACC and Big 12. As of the 2024 season, the FBS has 134 members , divided between the Power Four, five other conferences known as

3380-603: The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), and the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Since 2014, the power conferences have held some autonomy from the rest of Division I in regard to issues such as stipends and recruiting rules. Roughly half of the schools in the FBS play in one of the Power Four conferences. The remaining schools are either independent , play in the Pac-12 Conference , or play in one of

3510-815: The Big East Conference , the Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10), or the Metro Conference , each of which were founded in the 1970s as non-football conferences. In 1962, several members of the Skyline Conference and the Border Conference founded the Western Athletic Conference (WAC). Although generally not considered a power conference, four of the six founding WAC members would ultimately join one of

3640-650: The Big Ten Academic Alliance and the Atlantic Coast Conference Academic Consortium. Out of all Power Four schools, only five are religiously affiliated: Baylor, Boston College, BYU, Notre Dame, and TCU. Seven Power Four schools that are now officially nonsectarian were founded as faith-based institutions—ACC members Duke, SMU, Syracuse, and Wake Forest, Big Ten members Northwestern and USC, and SEC member Vanderbilt. Most became officially nonsectarian in

3770-680: The Football Bowl Subdivision (130 schools in 2017), between 50 and 60 percent of football and men's basketball programs generated positive revenues (above program expenses). However, in the Football Championship Subdivision (124 schools in 2017), only four percent of football and five percent of men's basketball programs generated positive revenues. In 2012, 2% of athletic budgets were spent on equipment, uniforms and supplies for male athletes at NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision school, with

3900-592: The Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), and those institutions that do not have any football program. FBS teams have more players receiving athletic scholarships than FCS teams and formerly (until 2024) had minimum game-attendance requirements. The FBS is named for its series of postseason bowl games , with various polls ranking teams after the conclusion of these games, while

4030-526: The Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), which is the higher of the two levels of college football within NCAA Division I. It is unknown where the term "Power Conference" originated; it is not officially documented by the NCAA, though it has been used since at least 2006. The top conferences in the college football are called the "Power Four conferences": the Big Ten Conference , the Big 12 Conference ,

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4160-547: The Group of Five (G5), the Pac-12, and three independent schools. The term power conference is not defined by the NCAA, but the conferences are identified individually under NCAA rules as "autonomy conferences", which grants them some independence from standard NCAA rules. The power conferences also compete in other collegiate sports, but are not necessarily the most prominent in each sport; for example, in men's college basketball,

4290-641: The Ivy League and the Pioneer Football League (PFL), a football-only conference. The Ivy League allows no athletic scholarships at all, while the PFL consists of schools that offer scholarships in other sports but choose not to take on the expense of a scholarship football program. The Northeast Conference also sponsored non-scholarship football, but began offering a maximum of 30 full scholarship equivalents in 2006, which grew to 40 in 2011 after

4420-426: The access bowls . FBS schools are limited to a total of 85 football players receiving financial assistance. For competitive reasons, a student receiving partial scholarship counts fully against the total of 85. Nearly all FBS schools that are not on NCAA probation give 85 full scholarships. As of the current 2024 college football season, there are 133 full members of Division I FBS, plus one transitional school that

4550-414: The main men's basketball tournament . The move drew controversy from mid-major universities and conferences, as the previous NIT structure had awarded automatic bids to all Division I conferences whose teams with the strongest regular season record had not qualified for the main tournament. The awarding of the majority of home court games to the Power Five prompted St. Bonaventure University , which had for

4680-420: The modern Big East – which does not sponsor football – is also considered to be a power conference. The ten FBS conferences as of the 2024–25 academic year are listed. For the Power Four, the members of each conference are also listed: The power conferences are all part of NCAA Division I , which contains most of the largest and most competitive collegiate athletic programs in the United States, and

4810-717: The 1990s. The Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) was founded in 1915, but disbanded in 1959 following a "pay-for-play" scandal. Some of the former members of the Pacific Coast Conference formed the Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU) that same year, and by 1968 the AAWU had renamed itself as the Pac-8 and contained most of the former members of the PCC. Several of the larger schools split off from

4940-400: The 2006 season, it was possible for the number of Bowl Subdivision schools to drop in the future if those schools were not able to pull in enough fans into the games. Additionally, 14 FCS schools had enough attendance to be moved up in 2012. Under current NCAA rules, these schools must have an invitation from an FBS conference in order to move to FBS. The difference in the postseasons in each of

5070-432: The 2014–15 fiscal year, the conferences that earned the most revenues (and that distributed the most revenues to each of their member schools) were: The NCAA has limits on the total financial aid each Division I member may award in each sport that the school sponsors. It divides sports that are sponsored into two types for purposes of scholarship limitations: The term "counter" is also key to this concept. The NCAA defines

5200-577: The 2020 arrival of Tarleton and Utah Tech (then Dixie State) from Division II; both schools planned to be FCS independents for the foreseeable future. The WAC would reinstate football at the FCS level in 2021, coinciding with the arrival of four new members with FCS football; for its first season, it entered into a formal partnership with the ASUN Conference to give it enough playoff-eligible members to receive an automatic playoff berth. This partnership

5330-706: The 2024 season. During a period of less than two months in 2021, the Big 12 both gained and lost members. First, on July 30, the conference lost two of its mainstays when Oklahoma and Texas announced that they would leave for the SEC no later than 2025; the two schools later reached a buyout agreement allowing them to join the SEC in 2024. The Big 12 reloaded by announcing four new members on September 10, initially announcing that American members Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF plus FBS independent BYU would join no later than 2024. BYU's initial announcement stated that it would join in 2023, and

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5460-792: The 2024 season: the Notre Dame Fighting Irish , the UConn Huskies , and the UMass Minutemen . Notre Dame is considered equal to the Power Four schools, being a full (with the exception of football) member of the ACC with an annual five-game football scheduling agreement with that conference; Notre Dame also has its own national television contract and its own arrangement for access to the CFP-affiliated bowl games should it meet stated competitive criteria. The other independents are generally considered to be on

5590-510: The 20th century, claiming numerous national championships . Motivated in large part by fatalities and injuries sustained in college football, President Theodore Roosevelt worked with various collegiate athletic programs to establish the NCAA in 1906. The NCAA was preceded by the earliest athletic conferences, including the Big Ten, which was founded in 1896 as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives and

5720-670: The AAC for the 2013 season, since that conference inherited the Big East's BCS automatic qualifying status for that season. The following table lists the number of times that a member of each conference appeared was selected to appear in a BCS bowl game (from 1998 to 2013), a New Year's Six bowl game (from 2014 to 2023), or the College Football Playoff (since 2014). From the 1998 to 2005 seasons eight teams were selected, from 2006 to 2013 ten teams were selected, and since 2014 twelve teams have been selected to appear in these games. A * indicates

5850-472: The ACC after the 2005 conference realignment saw its stature gradually diminish, and it eventually split into two following a realignment in the early 2010s ; at the same time, the BCS was reorganised into the College Football Playoff, and the remaining AQ conferences were collectively referred to as the Power Five . A further realignment in the early 2020s saw the Pac-12 left with only two members after

5980-638: The ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC as the Power Four Conferences, with the Pac-12 relegated to "de facto Group of 5 status". The FBS has undergone several waves of realignment since the 1990s, when the Bowl Coalition was established. The first realignment occurred in the 1990s, and resulted in the demise of the Southwest Conference, which was a member of the Bowl Coalition and at times considered equal to some of

6110-521: The BCS also created a set format for other major bowls. After the two top teams in the BCS rankings were matched up in the BCS National Championship Game , the other three or (after the 2005 season) four bowls selected other top teams. The BCS ranking formula used a combination of polls and computer selection methods to determine team rankings, though conference championships also affected game selection. The term "BCS conference"

6240-449: The Big 12. Former Big East members Temple and South Florida became part of The American; another former Big East member, UConn , left American Conference football after the 2019 season to become an FBS independent while otherwise joining the Big East. Of these, only Temple was a founding member of the Big East in football. The most recent major realignment is ongoing , though there is no future planned power conference realignment after

6370-553: The Big East name. The rump Big East renamed itself as the American Athletic Conference and took the Big East's automatic bid for the 2013 season. The Mountain West Conference , formed in 1998 by several former WAC members, was perhaps the closest of the other conferences to getting AQ status, but its request for AQ status was denied in 2012. In addition to creating a national championship game,

6500-455: The Big Ten and the SEC might ultimately emerge as the "Power Two" conferences. The realignment also generated much commentary regarding the lack of geographical proximity within conferences. In a 2022 article, FiveThirtyEight described the Big Ten as the first "major college athletics league" to be bicoastal (the Big Ten would later be joined by the ACC in this distinction after the latter conference added Stanford and California), adding that

6630-570: The Big Ten), and South Carolina (to the SEC) joined major conferences. In the 1996 NCAA conference realignment , the SWC dissolved, and four Texas teams from that conference joined with the Big 8 schools to form the Big 12 Conference . During another phase of realignment in 2005 , three schools ( Boston College , Miami-FL and Virginia Tech ) jumped from the Big East to the ACC, and Temple also left

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6760-457: The Big Ten. About half of the Power Four schools are in the AAU, with most of those schools in the ACC or Big Ten, although several are members of the Big 12 or the SEC. The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education , a classification system of universities based on research activity, lists nearly all Power Four schools as "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity";

6890-411: The CFP participants in the four-team era, and the remaining FBS programs. Responding in part to the possibility that the Power Five might split off to form its own organization, in 2014 the NCAA Division I Board of Directors granted the Power Five conferences autonomy over rules such as stipends and staff sizes. The CFP also led to changes in stature among the Power Five, and the Pac-12's failure to place

7020-493: The College Football Playoff, is held at a separately determined neutral site. College football originated in the Northeastern United States in the final third of the 19th century, with the 1869 Princeton vs. Rutgers football game often considered to be the first college football game. The schools that would eventually form the Ivy League dominated college football in the 19th century and for parts of

7150-573: The Division I Men's Basketball Championship and ticket sales for all championships. That money is distributed in more than a dozen ways — almost all of which directly support NCAA schools, conferences and nearly half a million student-athletes. About 60% of the NCAA's annual revenue — around $ 600 million — is annually distributed directly to Division I member schools and conferences, while more than $ 150 million funds Division I championships" (NCAA 2021). Finances Under NCAA regulations, all Division I conferences defined as "multisport conferences" must meet

7280-623: The FCS from a lower division (or from the NAIA ) are also ineligible for the playoffs. Division I FCS schools are currently restricted to giving financial assistance amounting to 63 full scholarships. As FCS football is an "equivalency" sport (as opposed to the "head-count" status of FBS football), Championship Subdivision schools may divide their allotment into partial scholarships. However, FCS schools may only have 85 players receiving any sort of athletic financial aid for football—the same numeric limit as FBS schools. Because of competitive forces, however,

7410-618: The FCS national champion is determined by a multi-team bracket tournament. For the 2020–21 school year, Division I contained 357 of the NCAA's 1,066 member institutions, with 130 in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), 127 in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), and 100 non-football schools, with six additional schools in the transition from Division II to Division I. There was a moratorium on any additional movement up to D-I until 2012, after which any school that wants to move to D-I must be accepted for membership by

7540-511: The Group of Five, leading many to call for a playoff . The 2021 Cincinnati Bearcats were the only Group of Five team to ever play in the College Football Playoff prior to the playoff's expansion to twelve teams in 2024; the Bearcats were defeated in the semi-final 2021 Cotton Bowl Classic . Another Group of Five team, the 2017 UCF Knights , was left out of the CFP, but proclaimed themselves

7670-631: The I-AA playoffs was Jackson State in 1997 ; the SWAC never achieved success in the tournament, going winless in 19 games in twenty years (1978–97). It had greater success outside the conference while in Division II and the preceding College Division. From 2006 through 2009, the Pioneer Football League and Northeast Conference champions played in the Gridiron Classic . If a league champion

7800-616: The Ivy League sponsors more sports. Power Four schools dominate the list of NCAA schools with the most NCAA Division I championships ; of the top fifteen schools, only the University of Denver , which last played football in 1960, does not play in a Power Four conference. Power Four schools also generally dominate the standings in the Division I NACDA Directors' Cup and the Capital One Cup , two awards honoring schools with

7930-497: The Midwest (Cincinnati, DePaul, Marquette, Notre Dame), Upper South (Louisville, Memphis) and Southwest (Houston, SMU). The non-football conference that assumed the Big East name when the original Big East split in 2013 is another example of this phenomenon, as half of its 10 inaugural schools (Butler, Creighton, DePaul, Marquette, Xavier) are traditionally regarded as being Midwestern. An even more extrema example of this phenomenon

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8060-431: The Pac-12 on August 4, 2023; Oregon and Washington joined the Big Ten and Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah joined the Big 12. Less than a month after this exodus, California and Stanford announced their departure from the Pac-12 to join the ACC in 2024, with American Conference member SMU also joining the ACC. This realignment led to Pac-12 being considered a de facto member of the Group of Five, and fueled discussion that

8190-439: The Power Four conferences have scrapped divisions, and conference championship games take place between the two highest-ranking teams. The College Football Playoff takes place after the conference championship games and contemporaneously with several other bowl games. Following several changes after the 2023 college football season, the playoff consists of 12 teams, with the top five conference champions receiving automatic bids to

8320-774: The Power Four conferences play an eight or nine-game conference schedule, and play an additional three or four non-conference games to fill out their 12-game regular season schedule. Teams from the Power Four and the Group of Five often play non-conference games against each other during the season, and sometimes also play against teams from the FCS , the lower tier of division one football. However, many coaches of power conference schools have argued that power conference schools should only be allowed to schedule games against other power conference schools. All Power Four conferences that require their members to schedule at least one power conference opponent in nonconference play consider Notre Dame to be

8450-402: The Power Four conferences, and the 1984 BYU Cougars football team won the national championship. NCAA divisions were created in 1973 when the largest schools were placed in Division I, and in 1978, Division I football programs were further sub-divided into Division I-A (later Division I FBS) and Division I-AA (later Division I FCS). The Rose Bowl , a postseason game matching top teams from

8580-647: The Power Four conferences; other future power conference schools such as Louisville and BYU also played in the WAC or Conference USA during the 1990s. By the middle of the 20th century, the Rose Bowl matched up the Big Ten champion against the champion of the PCC and its successors, the Sugar Bowl generally hosted the conference champion of the SEC, and the Cotton Bowl generally hosted the conference champion of

8710-406: The SEC, the Pac-12, and the Big Ten, while the Big Ten also gained one former ACC member. The remaining members of the Big East split into two conferences : the American Athletic Conference (the American) and a new Big East Conference that does not sponsor football (only three of the original 10 members of the Big East sponsor football, all at the second-tier Division I FCS level). The American,

8840-575: The SELC Division I. All of the SELC DI teams are members of NCAA Division I . Currently the SELC DI league includes member schools from the Southeastern Conference (SEC), the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), and the American Athletic Conference (AAC). Six institutions make up the SELC Division II League. The league comprises various collegiate athletics levels. Note: Bold text indicates an MCLA National Championship winner. Note: Italic text indicates an MCLA National Championship runner-up. NCAA Division I NCAA Division I ( D-I )

8970-422: The SIAA in 1921 to form the Southern Conference , and the SIAA ultimately dissolved in 1942. The Southern Conference in turn later experienced the departure of its most prominent teams, first with the secession of 13 schools located south or west of the Appalachians to form the SEC in 1932. Most of the remaining large schools departed the Southern Conference in 1953 to form the ACC, and after losing its top programs,

9100-420: The SWC. The Orange Bowl often hosted the champion of the Big Eight, though it would later develop close ties with the ACC. The Fiesta Bowl was initially founded in 1971 to host the WAC champion, but later rose to prominence in the 1980s while frequently hosting games involving independents, including the 1987 Fiesta Bowl , which served as the de facto national championship game for that season. From 1968 to 1992,

9230-445: The Southeast. The SELC has provided consistent collegiate competition among the member teams, produced viable team/player recognition awards and stages a first-class championship event. Additionally, the league is seeing successful high school players from the typical lacrosse base of the eastern seaboard come south for educational opportunities which have improved the quality of play of these teams. Currently, 10 different teams are in

9360-551: The Southern Conference ultimately became part of the FCS. The Ivy League was officially founded in the 1950s, but the football programs of Ivy League schools declined in stature after World War II , and the conference ultimately dropped down to Division I-AA in 1982. Until the 1990s, many top programs, particularly in the Northeast, played as football independents. Many of these independents were affiliated with

9490-604: The Sugar Bowl, the Orange Bowl, and the Fiesta Bowl all took part in the system, with a national championship game either rotating among the four bowl sites (prior to the 2006 season) or played as a separate game. The BCS succeeded in bringing an end to split national championships, except in the 2003 season , when LSU won the national championship game and was crowned national champion by the Coaches Poll , but USC

9620-743: The United States. They are part of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association 's Division I , the highest level of collegiate football in the nation, and are considered the most elite conferences within that tier. Power conferences have provided most of the participants in the College Football Playoff (CFP) and its predecessors, and generally have larger revenue, budgets, and television viewership than other college athletic programs. The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big Ten Conference , Big 12 Conference , and Southeastern Conference (SEC) are currently recognised as power conferences. For decades,

9750-630: The West with top teams from the East, was first played in 1902 and became a yearly tradition in 1916. As college football grew beyond its regional affiliations in the 1930s, it garnered increased national attention. Four new bowl games were created: the Orange Bowl , Sugar Bowl , and Sun Bowl in 1935, and the Cotton Bowl in 1937. In lieu of an actual national championship, these bowl games provided

9880-599: The addition of Arizona and Arizona State, and "Pac-12" (instead of "Pacific-12") in 2011 when Colorado and Utah joined . Conferences also tend to ignore their regional names when adding new schools. For example, the Pac-8/10/12 retained its "Pacific" moniker even though its four most recent additions (Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Utah) are located in the inland West, and the original Big East kept its name even after adding schools (either in all sports or for football only) located in areas traditionally considered to be in

10010-421: The average distance between FBS conference members was set to increase from 336 miles to 412 miles.   Indicates a football-only move.   Indicates a non-football move. This list includes all institutions that have either left or announced their departure from the ACC, Big East, Big 12, Pac-12, Big 10, or SEC since the establishment of the Bowl Championship Series in 1998.   Indicates

10140-493: The biggest conferences. For example, the Big Ten conference in 2016 entered into contracts with Fox and ESPN that pay the conference $ 2.64 billion over six years. The NCAA also holds certain TV contracts. For example, the NCAA's contract to show the men's basketball championship tournament (widely known as March Madness) is currently under a 14-year deal with CBS and Turner that runs from 2010 to 2024 and pays $ 11 billion. For

10270-568: The champions of its East and West divisions. Also, three of its member schools traditionally do not finish their regular seasons until Thanksgiving weekend. Grambling State and Southern play each other in the Bayou Classic , and Alabama State plays Tuskegee (of Division II ) in the Turkey Day Classic . SWAC teams are eligible to accept at-large bids if their schedule is not in conflict. The last SWAC team to participate in

10400-454: The collapse of the Big East and the end of BCS automatic qualifying status for conferences; the Power Five conferences consisted of the ACC, the Big Ten, the Big 12, the Pac-12, and the SEC. Each conference champion from the Power Five and the highest-ranked Group of Five conference champion were guaranteed a spot in a New Year's Six Bowl. Because there were four spots in the playoffs and five power conferences, at least one Power Five champion

10530-556: The completion of the transition with the 2016 season, member schools have been allowed up to 60 full scholarship equivalents. Several Bowl Subdivision and Championship Subdivision conferences have member institutions that do not compete in football. Such schools are sometimes unofficially referred to as I-AAA. The following non-football conferences have full members that sponsor football: The following Division I conferences do not sponsor football . These conferences still compete in Division I for all sports that they sponsor. Of these,

10660-449: The conference (before eventually returning in 2013). The Big East responded by adding former basketball-only member Connecticut and three schools from CUSA. College football underwent another major conference realignment from 2010 to 2014, as the Big Ten and Pac-10 sought to become large enough to stage championship games. Members of the original Big East left the conference to join the Big 12, Big Ten, and ACC. The Big 12 lost members to

10790-585: The conference announced it would expand in 2024 to the Pacific coast with San Francisco Bay Area rivals California and Stanford , and also add SMU from Dallas–Fort Worth . ** – "Big Four" or "Power Four" conferences that had guaranteed berths in the "access bowls" associated with the College Football Playoff before its 2024 expansion to 12 teams *** – "Group of Five" conferences The Division I Football Championship Subdivision ( FCS ), formerly known as Division I-AA , consists of 130 teams as of

10920-664: The conferences known as the Group of Five conferences , which consists of the American Athletic Conference (AAC or "The American"), Conference USA (CUSA), the Mid-American Conference (MAC), the Mountain West Conference (MW), and the Sun Belt Conference (SBC). The term "Power Four conferences" is often shortened to "P4", while the Group of Five Conferences are often referred to as the "G5". The FBS has three independents as of

11050-514: The eponymous post-season championship tournament. The Ivy League was reclassified to I-AA (FCS) following the 1981 season , and plays a strict ten-game schedule. Although it qualifies for an automatic bid, the Ivy League has not played any postseason games at all since becoming a conference, citing academic concerns. The Ivy League member to play in a bowl game was Columbia in the 1934 Rose Bowl . The Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) has its own championship game in mid-December between

11180-404: The exceptions are Wake Forest, TCU, BYU, and SMU, each of which are listed as "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity". Of the 30 U.S. universities with the greatest research expenditures in 2022, nearly two-thirds were members of one of the power conferences. Some of the Power Four conferences share academic resources among conference members through related academic consortiums such as

11310-471: The existence of an official NCAA championship in the latter subdivision. Before the 2023 season, the NCAA required that FBS schools average at least 15,000 attendance, allowing schools to report either total tickets sold or the number of persons in attendance at the games. The requirement was a minimum average of 15,000 people in attendance every other year. These numbers are posted to the NCAA statistics website for football each year. With new rules starting in

11440-430: The first Division I conference to hold a conference championship game for football. The Southwest Conference dissolved in the wake of a series of scandals and concerns over an insufficiently large television market, and four teams from that conference joined with the Big 8 to create the Big 12 Conference in 1994. The remaining SWC schools joined the WAC or the newly-formed Conference USA, though most would later join one of

11570-599: The following criteria: FBS conferences must meet a more stringent set of requirements for NCAA recognition than other conferences: † "Power Four" conferences that had guaranteed berths in the New Year's Six , the bowl games associated with the College Football Playoff , before the playoff's 2024 expansion to 12 teams ‡ "Group of Five" conferences Sports are ranked according to total possible scholarships (number of teams x number of scholarships per team). Scholarship numbers for head-count sports are indicated without

11700-488: The football successor to the Big East, is no longer considered a power conference. Despite the major conference realignment from 2010 to 2014, relatively few schools dropped out of or joined the ranks of the power conferences. Two of the three non-AQ schools that had appeared in multiple BCS bowls left the Mountain West Conference and joined a power conference, as Utah joined the Pac-12 and TCU joined

11830-482: The greatest collegiate athletic success across all sports. For example, the top ten of the 2022-2023 Division I NACDA Directors' Cup standings consisted entirely of power conference programs. The Power Four conferences are not necessarily the most prominent conferences in all sports in which they compete. For example, in men's college basketball, the Big East Conference is also generally considered to be

11960-460: The highly controversial 2010 Fiesta Bowl in which the Broncos were selected via at-large bid and played fellow BCS Buster TCU. College Football Playoff semifinal in bold . Group of Five team in italics . Asterisks denotes years in which Group of Five teams won the game. Each power conference sponsors at least 22 sports, with the Big Ten sponsoring the most at 28; among all NCAA conferences, only

12090-440: The last remaining members of the Pac-12. Although the Football Bowl Subdivision requires conferences to have at least eight members, the conference continued operating with just two members because conferences are allowed a two-year grace period after losing members. In early 2024, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors stripped the Pac-12 of its autonomous conference status. In light of the changes, various sources began referring to

12220-580: The latter of which will move football to the Patriot League in 2025). The MAAC stopped sponsoring football in 2007, after most of its members gradually stopped fielding teams. Among current MAAC members that were in the conference before 2007, only Marist , which plays in the Pioneer Football League, still sponsors football. From 2013 to 2021, the Western Athletic Conference was a non-football league, having dropped football after

12350-505: The median spending per-school at $ 742,000. In 2014, the NCAA and the student athletes debated whether student athletes should be paid. In April, the NCAA approved students-athletes getting free unlimited meals and snacks. The NCAA stated "The adoption of the meals legislation finished a conversation that began in the Awards, Benefits, Expenses and Financial Aid Cabinet. Members have worked to find appropriate ways to ensure student-athletes get

12480-534: The membership totals to 14 in 2023 and 16 effective in 2024. On the other hand, the Pac-12 Conference used names (official or unofficial) that have reflected the number of members from the establishment of its current charter in 1959 until its collapse in 2024 . The conference unofficially used "Big Five" (1959–62), "Big Six" (1962–64), and "Pacific-8" (1964–68) before officially adopting the "Pacific-8" name. The name duly changed to "Pacific-10" in 1978 with

12610-559: The most prominent conferences sent their teams to postseason bowl games , but the season frequently ended with multiple teams claiming the national championship. After the 1990 and 1991 seasons ended with consecutive split championships, several of the most prominent conferences and bowl games formed the Bowl Coalition (1992–94) – and later the Bowl Alliance (1995–97) – to provide a definitive national champion; in 1998,

12740-410: The name even after it expanded to 11 members with the addition of Penn State in 1990, 12 with the addition of Nebraska in 2011 , and 14 with the arrival of Maryland and Rutgers in 2014 . The Big 12 Conference was established in 1996 with 12 members, but continues to use that name even after a number of departures and a few replacements left the conference with 10 members, and later expansions brought

12870-503: The national champion after going undefeated in the regular season and winning the 2018 Peach Bowl . In 2022, the College Football playoff board voted to expand the playoff to twelve teams, with the new system taking effect for the 2024 season. As part of the early-2020s NCAA conference realignment , ten schools departed from the Pac-12 following the 2023 college football season , leaving Oregon State and Washington State as

13000-547: The national semi-finals, and four other bowls matching the remaining top teams in the country. These six bowl games were collectively labeled as the " New Year's Six " bowl games. The New Year's Six consisted of the four BCS bowls, the Cotton Bowl, and the Peach Bowl , the latter of which was established in 1968 but had been considered a minor bowl for much of its history. Although the term "Power Five conferences" had been used by at least 2006, it gained prominence following

13130-404: The number one and number two ranked teams in the AP poll met only eight times in a bowl game, frequently leading to situations in which multiple teams claimed the national championship. Seeking a more definitive way to determine the national champion, the SEC, Big 8, SWC (prior to its dissolution), ACC, Big East, and independent Notre Dame joined with several bowls to form the Bowl Coalition , which

13260-457: The nutrition they need without jeopardizing Pell Grants or other federal aid received by the neediest student-athletes. With their vote, members of the council said they believe loosening NCAA rules on what and when food can be provided from athletics departments is the best way to address the issue." According to the finance section of the NCAA page, "The NCAA receives most of its annual revenue from two sources: television and marketing rights for

13390-402: The other three schools' 2023 entry date was confirmed after they reached a buyout agreement with The American. On June 30, 2022, Pac-12 mainstays UCLA and USC announced they would move to the Big Ten in 2024. The Pac-12 lost another member a little more than a year later when Colorado returned to the Big 12 in 2024 after an absence of 13 years. Five more schools announced their departure from

13520-422: The playoffs. At least one Group of Five Conference will be awarded one of the automatic bids in each playoff. The College Football Playoff requires that a conference have at least eight teams in order to be eligible for an automatic qualifying bid, so the two-member Pac-12 is not eligible to receive an automatic bid. Under the new system, the four highest-ranked conference champions receive first-round byes, while

13650-456: The power conferences; as well as many schools giving up independent status to join conferences. In the early 1990s, Arkansas left the Southwest Conference for the SEC; the original Big East Conference began sponsoring football, with eight former football independents joining either for all sports or football only; and other major independents such as Florida State (to the ACC), Penn State (to

13780-412: The previous decade declined bids to private postseason tournaments for financial reasons but had accepted NIT bids, to preemptively rule itself out of the 2024 NIT, with the university stating that it could not justify entering a tournament that effectively required its team to go on the road with no opportunity for home games. The NCAA admitted the maneuver was done as an anti-competitive measure against

13910-530: The reimagined Pac-12 in 2026, is generally considered a power program in men's basketball. In 2024 , the National Invitation Tournament , an annual men's college basketball tournament, was restructured such that the then-Power Five conferences, along with their former BCS counterpart the Big East, received two automatic bids and home court advantage , with the two bids selected from teams in those conferences that were not selected for

14040-401: The remaining eight teams play in the opening round of the playoffs at the home fields of the higher seeds. The " New Year's Six " bowls, which have held an important role in the college football postseason since before the establishment of the College Football Playoff, host the quarterfinals and semifinals on a rotating basis. The College Football Playoff National Championship , the final game of

14170-465: The rights to individual schools and conferences. With the exception of Notre Dame, all of the major independent programs joined a conference in the early 1990s. Many of the independents in the Northeast and elsewhere on the Eastern Seaboard joined the Big East, which began playing football in 1991. Other independent schools joined the Big Ten, the ACC, or the SEC, and in 1992 the SEC became

14300-646: The same level as the G5 conferences. Compared to the Group of Five, power conference schools have significantly higher revenue, due to television deals with major networks and streaming services. In 2022, the power conferences generated a combined $ 3.3 billion in revenue. College football games often draw strong television ratings, and, along with the NFL , college football was one of the few television properties to grow in live ratings between 2013 and 2023. In 2022, college football games between power conference teams made up five of

14430-485: The same season. The Pioneer Football League earned an automatic bid beginning in 2013. The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) began abstaining from the playoffs with the 2015 season. Like the SWAC, its members are eligible for at-large bids, and the two conferences have faced off in the Celebration Bowl as an alternative postseason game since the 2015 season. Schools in a transition period after joining

14560-617: The six largest conferences – the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East , SEC, and Pac-12 – and the four most prominent bowl games – the Fiesta , Orange , Rose and Sugar Bowls – formed the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), with conference champions awarded Automatic Qualifying (AQ) status to the bowl games and, provisionally, the National Championship Game . The defection of three Big East members to

14690-447: The sport in which multi-sport athletes are to be counted, with the basic rules being: Subdivisions in Division I exist only in football . In all other sports, all Division I conferences are equivalent. The subdivisions were recently given names to reflect the differing levels of football play in them. As of the 2023 season, the main distinctions between Bowl Subdivision and Championship Subdivision schools are scholarship policies and

14820-524: The subdivisions grant the FCS an advantage to have the best record in college football history, 17–0, while the FBS only allows a 15–0 record. FBS attendance requirements were abolished early in the 2023 season, effective immediately. In their place, Division I added new requirements for athletic funding. Effective in 2027–28, FBS schools must fund the equivalent of at least 210 full scholarships across all of their NCAA sports; spend at least $ 6 million annually on athletic scholarships; and provide at least 90% of

14950-1110: The ten most-watched non-NFL sporting events among U.S. viewers. With 22.56 million viewers, the 2022 national championship game ranked as the most watched college football game of the year, and as the 33rd most-watched sporting event in the United States; only NFL games ranked higher. Almost every Power Four school has a home stadium capacity of at least 40,000, and the power conferences all had an average attendance of at least 44,000 in 2022. This compares to an FBS average attendance of just under 42,000 and Group of Five average attendance that ranged between 14,000 and 29,000 for each conference. This revenue advantage allows Power Four conferences to pay higher salaries to coaches and invest in expensive athletic facilities and amenities. Although schools cannot directly pay student athletes, since 2021 school boosters and other third parties can pay student athletes for their name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights. Much of this NIL money goes to Power Four conference athletes, although numerous athletes from other conferences have also received NIL compensation. Teams in

15080-417: The total number of allowed scholarship equivalents across 16 sports, including football. Division I Football Bowl Subdivision ( FBS ), formerly known as Division I-A , is the top level of college football . Schools in Division I FBS compete in post-season bowl games , with the champions of five conferences, along with the highest-ranked champion of the other five conferences, receiving automatic bids to

15210-529: The two that most recently sponsored football were the Atlantic 10 and MAAC. The A-10 football league dissolved in 2006 with its members going to CAA Football, the technically separate football league operated by the all-sports Coastal Athletic Association. In addition, four A-10 schools ( Dayton , Fordham , Duquesne , and Massachusetts ) play football in a conference other CAA Football, which still includes two full-time A-10 members ( Rhode Island and Richmond ,

15340-400: The winners of each of two divisions, with each team having played a full round-robin schedule within its division, or (2) between the conference's top two teams after a full round-robin conference schedule. Before 2016, "exempt" championship games could only be held between the divisional winners of conferences that had at least 12 football teams and split into divisions. The prize is normally

15470-717: Was a 12-team tournament; this expanded to 16 teams in 1986. The playoffs expanded to 20 teams starting in 2010, then grew to 24 teams in 2013. Since the 2010 season, the title game is held in early January at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas . From 1997 through 2009, the title game was played in December in Chattanooga, Tennessee , preceded by five seasons in Huntington, West Virginia . The Football Championship Subdivision includes several conferences which do not participate in

15600-410: Was always left out of the playoff. In some seasons only two or three P5 champions were selected to the playoff, though the 2023 Florida State Seminoles were the lone undefeated P5 champion to be passed over for selection. The new playoff system drew strong television ratings, helping to boost the profile of college football and specifically to the Power Five conferences, who constituted all but one of

15730-420: Was eligible for a BCS bowl and not playing in the national title game. Notre Dame remained an independent in football, but had guaranteed access to the BCS bowls when it met certain defined performance criteria. The conferences automatic qualifying conferences and their traditional bowl links were: The other conferences (listed below) were non-AQ conferences because they did not receive an annual automatic bid to

15860-656: Was formed in 1907, and in 1928 the MVIAA split into two conferences, with the larger schools from the MVIAA forming the Big Six Conference. The Big Six later expanded to eight teams in 1957, becoming known as the Big Eight Conference . The Southwest Conference (SWC) was formed in 1914 by several schools in Texas and neighboring states, and after some early defections would maintain stable membership into

15990-657: Was invited to the national championship playoff as an at-large bid (something the Pioneer league, at least, never received), the second-place team would play in the Gridiron Classic. That game was scrapped after the 2009 season when its four-year contract ran out; this coincided with the NCAA's announcement that the Northeast Conference would get an automatic bid to the tournament starting in 2010. The Big South Conference also received an automatic bid in

16120-464: Was later succeeded by the similar Bowl Alliance . The Big Ten and Pac-10 declined to join either group in favor of continuing to send their respective champion to the Rose Bowl, contributing to split national championships during some seasons in the 1990s. In 1998, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was created by the Big 10, Pac-12, and the former members of the Bowl Alliance. The Rose Bowl,

16250-468: Was often referred to as the "Western Conference". The conference became known as the Big Ten after expanding to ten teams in 1917, though it would not legally adopt the "Big Ten" name until 1987. The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA), founded in 1894, at its peak consisted of 28 schools across almost every Southern state, and was the predecessor to both the SEC and the ACC. The Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MVIAA)

16380-657: Was previously called the University Division of the NCAA, in contrast to the lower-level College Division; these terms were replaced with numeric divisions in 1973. The University Division was renamed Division I, while the College Division was split in two; the College Division members that offered scholarships or wanted to compete against those who did became Division II, while those who did not want to offer scholarships became Division III. For college football only, D-I schools are further divided into

16510-542: Was renewed for the 2022 season, with five ASUN and three WAC schools participating, though each conference will play its own schedule. After the 2022 season, the ASUN and WAC announced a full football merger for 2023 and beyond under the banner of the United Athletic Conference . Power conferences The power conferences are the most prominent athletic conferences in college football in

16640-468: Was selected as the national champion by the AP poll . While the number of AQ conferences was technically variable, the BCS always had six AQ conferences for its entire history between 1998 and 2013. Following the departure of several Big East members to the ACC, the non-football schools of the Big East known as the "Catholic 7" chose to withdraw from the conference, ultimately creating a new conference that took on

16770-521: Was televised in 1938, and as universities began to widely televise their games after World War II, the NCAA took control of television broadcast rights in 1951 and restricted the number of games that a program could air on television. The 1984 Supreme Court case NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma spurred a round of conference realignment by ending the NCAA's monopoly on television rights of college football games, instead granting

16900-428: Was used by many fans to refer to one of the six conferences whose champions received an automatic berth in one of the five BCS bowl games, although the BCS itself used the term "automatic qualifying conference" (AQ conference). Each of the bowls had a historical link with one or more of the six BCS conferences with the exception of the former Big East, and the bowl games selected a team from each of these conferences if it

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