Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA) is an

intercollegiate {{Short pages monitor C-USA champions Bowl games The highest-ranked champion from the so-called "Group of Five" conferences ( The American, C-USA, MAC,

Mountain West The Mountain West Conference (MW) is one of the collegiate athletic conferences affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) (formerly I-A). The MW officially began operations o ...

, and

Sun Belt The Sun Belt is a region of the United States generally considered to stretch across the Southeast and Southwest. Another rough definition of the region is the area south of the 36th parallel. Several climates can be found in the region — des ...

) is guaranteed a berth in one of the non-semifinal bowls of the

College Football Playoff The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual postseason knockout invitational tournament to determine a national champion for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level ...

if the group's top team is not in the playoff. For the 2014–19 seasons, Conference USA is guaranteed at least five of the following bowl games. Rivalries Current or former C-USA in conference rivalries:

Men's basketball

''For the current season, see 2022–23 Conference USA men's basketball season.'' This list goes through the 2017–18 season.

Women's basketball

This list goes through the 2012–13 season.

Baseball

Championships

Current C-USA champions

Champions from the previous school year are in ''italics''. "RS" is regular season, "T" is tournament. Women's swimming & diving was dropped after the 2021–22 season. Fall 2022 Winter 2022–23 Spring 2023

National champions

No current C-USA member has won a national team championship while a member of the conference. The only school to have won such a championship while a C-USA member is

Marshall Marshall may refer to: Places Australia * Marshall, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria Canada * Marshall, Saskatchewan * The Marshall, a mountain in British Columbia Liberia * Marshall, Liberia Marshall Islands * Marshall Islands, an i ...

, which moved to the Sun Belt Conference in 2022. Marshall won the 2020–21 men's soccer

championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

in May 2021 (with the tournament having moved from its normal schedule in fall 2020 to spring 2021 due to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

). The following current and future C-USA teams have won national championships when they were not affiliated with C-USA:

Facilities

Departing members are in pink while future members are denoted in blue. ;Notes

Media

In 2016, C-USA began a long-term television contract with lead partners

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

and

CBS Sports Network CBS Sports Network (a.k.a. CBSSN) is an American pay television network owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global. When it launched in 2002 as the National College Sports Network (later College Sports Television also known as ...

, with ESPN carrying 5 football games and the football championship game; and CBSSN carrying 6 football games, 5 basketball games, and both the men's and women's basketball championship games. C-USA also renewed and expanded its partnership with

American Sports Network American Sports Network (ASN) was a sports brand owned by the U.S. television station owner Sinclair Broadcast Group through its Sinclair Networks subsidiary. Formed in July 2014, the multicast network component of ASN produced broadcasts of sp ...

; owned and operated by

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, t ...

, ASN will carry between 15 and 30 football games; between 13 and 55 men's basketball games; and between 2 and 5 women's basketball games. ASN will also carry 10 events in other C-USA sports. The conference also entered into a contract with

beIN Sports beIN Sports ( ) is a global network of sports channels owned and operated by the Qatari media group beIN. It has played a major role in the increased commercialization of Qatari sports. Its chairman is Nasser Al-Khelaifi, and its CEO is Yousef O ...

for 10 football games (marking the first domestic American football rights the network has ever acquired, and the first broadcast rights deal it had ever entered into with a college conference), 10 men's and 10 women's basketball games, 12 baseball and 12 softball games, 10 men's and 10 women's soccer games (excluding conference men's soccer games at Kentucky and South Carolina, covered by their primary conference's contract), and 10 women's volleyball games. The total values of the 2016 contracts are notably lower than those of the previous contracts (which included

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the Fo ...

). Men's soccer associate members

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

and

South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

have an agreement with their primary conference for other sports to carry all home matches online through the

SEC Network The SEC Network is an American multinational sports network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which operates the network, through its 80% controlling ownership interest) and Hearst Communications (which holds ...

service, including all Conference USA conference matches. ESPN and the SEC Network will have first rights to all C-USA home men's soccer matches featuring both schools. In 2017 American Sports Network and Campus Insiders merged creating

Stadium A stadium ( : stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand o ...

. Stadium's C-USA content will be available to stream on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

and

Pluto TV Pluto TV is a free, ad-supported video streaming service owned and operated by the Paramount Streaming division of Paramount Global. Co-founded by Tom Ryan, Ilya Pozin and Nick Grouf in 2013 and based in Los Angeles, California, in the United Sta ...

. In 2017 Stadium completed a deal with

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

to exclusively stream some C-USA football games. In 2017 C-USA entered an agreement with the streaming subscription service FloSports to stream three football games.

CUSA.tv

In 2016 C-USA partnered with SIDEARM Sports to create a subscription based streaming service named CUSA.tv. In a statement C-USA Commissioner Judy MacLeod said, "Thanks to our partnership with SIDEARM Sports, this new site showcases a clean modern look with easy access to information and we are proud to offer live content and original feature stories through our CUSA.tv." Various sports including football, basketball, and baseball will exclusively air on CUSA.tv when they are not picked up by other networks.

Academics

One of the current member schools,

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...

is a member of the

Association of American Universities The Association of American Universities (AAU) is an organization of American research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education. Founded in 1900, it consists of 63 universities in the United States ( ...

(AAU), an organization of 62 leading research universities in the United States and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Six of the Conference's fourteen members are doctorate-granting universities with "very high research activity," the highest classification given by the

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) is a U.S.-based education policy and research center. It was founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered in 1906 by an act of the United States Congress. Among its most nota ...

. A majority of the Conference's members are ranked as Tier One National Universities in '' U.S. News & World Report''s 2022 Best Colleges rankings. ;Notes

Notes

References

External links

* {{NCAA Division I FBS conference navbox Sports in Irving, Texas Organizations established in 1995 Articles which contain graphical timelines College sports in Alabama College sports in Arkansas College sports in Florida College sports in Kentucky College sports in Louisiana College sports in North Carolina College sports in Tennessee