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The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a
nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
,
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 to ...
, and
Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
. It also organizes the
athletic Athletic may refer to: * An athlete, a sportsperson * Athletic director, a position at many American universities and schools * Athletic type, a physical/psychological type in the classification of Ernst Kretschmer * Athletic of Philadelphia, a ba ...
programs of
college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...
s and
universities A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United State ...
in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
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 to ...
and helps over 500,000 college student athletes who compete annually in college sports. The organization is headquartered in
Indianapolis Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...
,
Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th ...
. Until 1957, the NCAA was a single division for all schools. That year, the NCAA split into the University Division and the College Division. In August 1973, the current three-division system of Division I, Division II, and Division III was adopted by the NCAA membership in a special convention. Under NCAA rules, Division I and Division II schools can offer
scholarship A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need. Scholars ...
s to
athletes An athlete (also sportsman or sportswoman) is a person who competes in one or more sports that involve physical strength, speed, or endurance. Athletes may be professionals or amateurs. Most professional athletes have particularly well-develo ...
for playing a sport. Division III schools may not offer any athletic scholarships. Generally, larger schools compete in Division I and smaller schools in II and III. Division I
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...
was further divided into I-A and I-AA in 1978, while Division I programs that did not have football teams were known as I-AAA. In 2006, Divisions I-A and I-AA were respectively renamed the
Football Bowl Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As ...
(FBS) and
Football Championship Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision. Sponsored by the National Collegiate Athleti ...
(FCS). In its 2016–17 fiscal year, the NCAA took in $1.06 billion in revenue, over 82% of which was generated by the Division I men's basketball tournament. Controversially, the NCAA formerly capped the benefits that collegiate athletes could receive from their schools. The consensus among economists is these caps for men's basketball and football players benefit the athletes' schools (through
rent-seeking Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth without creating new wealth by manipulating the social or political environment. Rent-seeking activities have negative effects on the rest of society. They result in reduced economic effi ...
) at the expense of the athletes. Economists have subsequently characterized the NCAA as a
cartel A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. Cartels are usually associations in the same sphere of business, and thus an alliance of rivals. Mos ...
. On June 21, 2021, the
Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
unanimously ruled that the education-related benefit caps the NCAA imposes on student athletes are in violation of US antitrust law.


History


Formation and early years

Intercollegiate sports began in the United States in 1852 when crews from
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
and
Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
universities met in a challenge race in the sport of
rowing Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically atta ...
. As rowing remained the preeminent sport in the country into the late-1800s, many of the initial debates about collegiate athletic eligibility and purpose were settled through organizations like the
Rowing Association of American Colleges The Rowing Association of American Colleges (1870 to 1894) the first collegiate athletic organization in the United States, was a body governing college rowing. Upon organization by the captains of the leading crews of the day, they devised a prima ...
and the
Intercollegiate Rowing Association The Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) governs intercollegiate rowing between varsity men's heavyweight, men's lightweight, and women's lightweight rowing programs across the United States, while the NCAA fulfills this role for women's ope ...
. As other sports emerged, notably football and basketball, many of these same concepts and standards were adopted. Football, in particular, began to emerge as a marquee sport, but the rules of the game itself were in constant flux and often had to be adapted for each contest. The NCAA dates its formation to two White House conferences convened by President
Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
in the early 20th century in response to repeated injuries and deaths in college football which had "prompted many college and universities to discontinue the sport." Following those White House meetings and the reforms which had resulted, Chancellor
Henry MacCracken Henry Mitchell MacCracken (September 28, 1840 – December 24, 1918) was an American educator and academic administrator. Biography Henry MacCracken was born in Oxford, Ohio on September 28, 1840. He graduated from Miami University in Ohio ...
of
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...
organized a meeting of 13 colleges and universities to initiate changes in football playing rules; at a follow-on meeting on December 28, 1905, in New York, 62 higher-education institutions became charter members of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAAUS). The IAAUS was officially established on March 31, 1906, and took its present name, the NCAA, in 1910. For several years, the NCAA was a discussion group and rules-making body, but in 1921, the first NCAA national championship was conducted: the National Collegiate Track and Field Championships. Gradually, more rules committees were formed and more championships were created, including a basketball championship in 1939.NCAA History between 1910 and 1980
A series of crises brought the NCAA to a crossroads after World War II. The "Sanity Code" – adopted to establish guidelines for recruiting and financial aid – failed to curb abuses, and the Association needed to find more effective ways to curtail its membership. Postseason football games were multiplying with little control, and member schools were increasingly concerned about how the new medium of television would affect football attendance. The complexity of those problems and the growth in membership and championships demonstrated the need for full-time professional leadership.
Walter Byers Walter Byers (March 13, 1922 – May 26, 2015) was the first executive director of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Career Byers was the first executive director of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. He served from ...
, previously a part-time executive assistant, was named executive director in 1951, and a national headquarters was established in
Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...
in 1952. Byers wasted no time placing his stamp on the Association. A program to control live television of football games was approved, the annual Convention delegated enforcement powers to the Association's Council, and legislation was adopted governing postseason bowl games.


1970s–present

As
college athletics College athletics encompasses non-professional, collegiate and university-level competitive sports and games. World University Games The first World University Games were held in 1923. There were originally called the ''Union Nationale des ...
grew, the scope of the nation's athletics programs diverged, forcing the NCAA to create a structure that recognized varying levels of emphasis. In 1973, the association's membership was divided into three legislative and competitive divisions – I, II, and III. Five years later in 1978, Division I members voted to create subdivisions I-A and I-AA (renamed the Football Bowl Subdivision and the Football Championship Subdivision in 2006) in football. Until the 1980s, the association did not govern women's athletics. Instead, the
Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) was founded in 1971 to govern collegiate women's athletics in the United States and to administer national championships (see AIAW Champions). It evolved out of the Commission on Interc ...
(AIAW), with nearly 1,000 member schools, governed women's collegiate sports in the United States. The AIAW was in a vulnerable position that precipitated conflicts with the NCAA in the early-1980s. Following a one-year overlap in which both organizations staged women's championships, the AIAW discontinued operation, and most member schools continued their women's athletics programs under the governance of the NCAA. By 1982 all divisions of the NCAA offered national championship events for women's athletics. A year later in 1983, the 75th Convention approved an expansion to plan women's athletic program services and pushed for a women's championship program. By the 1980s, televised college football had become a larger source of income for the NCAA. In September 1981, the Board of Regents of the
University of Oklahoma The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two Territories became the state of Oklahom ...
and the
University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...
Athletic Association filed suit against the NCAA in district court in
Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
. The plaintiffs stated that the NCAA's football television plan constituted price fixing, output restraints, boycott, and monopolizing, all of which were illegal under the
Sherman Act The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (, ) is a United States antitrust law which prescribes the rule of free competition among those engaged in commerce. It was passed by Congress and is named for Senator John Sherman, its principal author. Th ...
. The NCAA argued that its pro-competitive and non-commercial justifications for the plan – protection of live gate, maintenance of competitive balance among NCAA member institutions, and the creation of a more attractive "product" to compete with other forms of entertainment – combined to make the plan reasonable. In September 1982, the district court found in favor of the plaintiffs, ruling that the plan violated antitrust laws. It enjoined the association from enforcing the contract. The NCAA appealed all the way to the
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
, but lost in 1984 in a 7–2 ruling ''
NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma ''NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma'', 468 U.S. 85 (1984), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) television plan violated the Sherman and Cla ...
''. (If the television contracts the NCAA had with
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...
,
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
, and
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 ...
had remained in effect for the 1984 season, they would have generated some $73.6 million for the association and its members.) In 1999, the NCAA was sued for discriminating against female athletes under
Title IX Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other educat ...
for systematically giving men in graduate school more waivers than a woman to participate in college sports. In ''
National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Smith ''National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Smith'', 525 U.S. 459 (1999), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the NCAA's receipt of dues payments from colleges and universities which received federal funds, wa ...
'', 525 U.S. 459 (1999) the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA was not subject to that law, without reviewing the merits of the discrimination claim. Over the last two decades recruiting international athletes has become a growing trend among NCAA institutions. For example, most German athletes outside of Germany are based at US universities. For many European athletes, the American universities are the only option to pursue an academic and athletic career at the same time. Many of these students come to the US with high academic expectations and aspirations. In 2009,
Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located from ...
in
Burnaby Burnaby is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada. Located in the centre of the Burrard Peninsula, it neighbours the City of Vancouver to the west, the District of North Vancouver across the confluence of the Burrard I ...
,
British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
,
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 to ...
, became the NCAA's first non-US member institution, joining Division II. In 2018, Division II membership approved allowing schools from
Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
to apply for membership; CETYS of
Tijuana Tijuana ( ,"Tijuana"
(US) and
< ...
,
Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...
expressed significant interest in joining at the time. In 2014, the NCAA set a record high of $989 million in net revenue. Just shy of $1 billion, it is among the highest of all large sports organizations. During the NCAA's 2022 annual convention, the membership ratified a new version of the organization's constitution. The new constitution dramatically simplifies a rulebook that many college sports leaders saw as increasingly bloated. It also reduces the size of the NCAA Board of Governors from 20 to 9, and guarantees that current and former athletes have voting representation on both the NCAA board and the governing bodies of each NCAA division. The new constitution was the first step in a reorganization process in which each division will have the right to set its own rules, with no approval needed from the rest of the NCAA membership.


Notable court cases

* In the late-1940s, there were only two colleges in the country, Notre Dame and
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
, with national TV contracts, a considerable source of revenue. In 1951, the NCAA voted to prohibit any live TV broadcast of college football games during the season. No sooner had the NCAA voted to ban television than public outcry forced it to retreat. Instead, the NCAA voted to restrict the number of televised games for each team to stop the slide in gate attendance.
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
president
Harold Stassen Harold Edward Stassen (April 13, 1907 – March 4, 2001) was an American politician who was the 25th Governor of Minnesota. He was a leading candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 1948, considered for a ti ...
defied the monopoly and renewed its contract with
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...
. Eventually, Penn dropped its suit when the NCAA, refusing Penn's request that the U.S. Attorney General rule on the legality of the NCAA's restrictive plan, threatened to expel the university from the association. Notre Dame continued televising its games through 1953, working around the ban by filming its games, then broadcasting them the next evening. *In 1957, the Colorado Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by the family of deceased Trinidad College football player Ray Herbert Dennison. Despite suffering a lethal concussion injury on the field in a game versus Fort Lewis A&M College, Dennison was not entitled to any compensation because he was not under a contractual obligation to play football. Furthermore, the court stated that the "college did not receive a direct benefit from the activities, since the college was not in the football business and received no benefit from this field of recreation". * In 1977, prompted partly by the Tarkanian Case, the US Congress initiated an investigation into the NCAA. It, combined with Tarkanian's case, forced the NCAA's internal files into the public record. * In 1998, the NCAA settled a $2.5 million lawsuit filed by former UNLV basketball coach,
Jerry Tarkanian Jerry Tarkanian (August 8, 1930 – February 11, 2015) was an American basketball coach. He coached college basketball for 31 seasons over five decades at three schools. He spent the majority of his career coaching with the UNLV Runnin' Rebe ...
. Tarkanian sued the NCAA after he was forced to resign from UNLV, where he had been head coach from 1973 to 1992. The suit claimed the agency singled him out, penalizing the university's basketball program three times in that span. Tarkanian said, "They can never, ever, make up for all the pain and agony they caused me. All I can say is that for 25 years they beat the hell out of me". The NCAA said that it regretted the long battle and it now has more understanding of Tarkanian's position and that the case has changed the enforcement process for the better. * In 1999, the NCAA was sued for discriminating against female athletes under
Title IX Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other educat ...
for systematically giving men in graduate school more waivers than a woman to participate in college sports. In ''
National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Smith ''National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Smith'', 525 U.S. 459 (1999), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the NCAA's receipt of dues payments from colleges and universities which received federal funds, wa ...
'', the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA was not subject to that law, without reviewing the merits of the discrimination claim. * In 2007, the case of ''White et al. v. NCAA, No. CV 06-999-RGK'' (C.D. Cal. September 20, 2006) was brought by former NCAA student-athletes Jason White, Brian Pollack, Jovan Harris, and Chris Craig as a class action lawsuit. They argued that the NCAA's current limits on a full scholarship or grant-in-aid was a violation of federal antitrust laws. Their reasoning was that in the absence of such a limit, NCAA member schools would be free to offer any financial aid packages they desired to recruit the student and athlete. The NCAA settled before a ruling by the court, by agreeing to set up the Former Student-Athlete Fund to "assist qualified candidates applying for receipt of career development expenses and/or reimbursement of educational expenses under the terms of the agreement with plaintiffs in a federal antitrust lawsuit." * In 2013,
Jay Bilas Jay Scot Bilas (born December 24, 1963) is an American college basketball analyst who currently works for ESPN. Bilas is a former professional basketball player and coach who played for and served as an assistant under Mike Krzyzewski at Duke Uni ...
claimed that the NCAA was taking advantage of individual players through jersey sales in its store. Specifically, he typed the names of several top college football players,
Tajh Boyd Tajh Khiry Boyd (born September 25, 1990) is an American football coach and former quarterback who currently is an offensive assistant at Clemson. He was drafted by the New York Jets in the sixth round of the 2014 NFL Draft. He played college fo ...
,
Teddy Bridgewater Theodore Edmond Bridgewater Jr. (born November 10, 1992) is an American football quarterback for the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League (NFL). Born and raised in Miami, Florida, he graduated from Miami Northwestern high school. Br ...
,
Jadeveon Clowney Jadeveon Davarus Clowney ( ; born February 14, 1993) is an American football defensive end for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at South Carolina, where he won the Ted Hendricks Award, and wa ...
,
Johnny Manziel Johnathan Paul Manziel ( ; born December 6, 1992) is an American football quarterback for the FCF Zappers of Fan Controlled Football (FCF). He played two seasons with the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL) and was also a mem ...
, and
A. J. McCarron Raymond Anthony "A. J." McCarron Jr. (born September 13, 1990) is an American football quarterback for the St. Louis BattleHawks of the XFL. He previously played in the National Football League (NFL) for eight seasons. McCarron played college ...
, into the search engine of the NCAA's official online store. The search results returned corresponding numbered team jerseys. The NCAA subsequently removed the team jerseys listed on its site. * In March 2014, four players filed a class action
antitrust Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...
lawsuit (''
O'Bannon v. NCAA ''O'Bannon v. NCAA'', 802 F.3d 1049 (9th Cir. 2015) was an United States antitrust law, antitrust class action lawsuit filed against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The lawsuit, which former UCLA Bruins men's basketball, UCL ...
''), alleging that the NCAA and its five dominant conferences are an "unlawful cartel". The suit charges that NCAA caps on the value of athletic scholarships have "illegally restricted the earning power of football and men's basketball players while making billions off their labor". Tulane University Sports Law Program Director Gabe Feldman called the suit "an instantly credible threat to the NCAA." On September 30, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that limiting compensation to the cost of an athlete's attendance at a university was sufficient. It simultaneously ruled against a federal judge's proposal to pay student athletes $5,000 per year in deferred compensation. *In August 2015, the National Labor Relations Board reversed a decision settled in the prior year that classified members of Northwestern University's scholarship football players as employees, thus, granting them the right to collectively bargain for their rights. The unionization efforts were a direct effort led by the College Athletes Player Association and Kain Colter, who operated with the support of the United Steelworkers group. The case was ultimately struck down due to difficulties in applying the ruling across both public and private institutions. The NCAA made several improvements to the value of athletic scholarships and the quality of healthcare coverage in response to this movement by the Northwestern football players. These reforms included guaranteeing the entire four years of scholarship in the event of a career-ending injury, the implementation of “cost of attendance” stipends, the institution of “unlimited” athlete meal plans, and protections for the name, image, and likeness of athletes by third parties such as Electronic Arts. *In 2018 former
UCF The University of Central Florida (UCF) is a public research university whose main campus is in unincorporated Orange County, Florida. UCF also has nine smaller regional campuses throughout central Florida. It is part of the State University ...
kicker
Donald De La Haye Donald De La Haye Jr. (born December 2, 1996), also known online as Deestroying, is a Costa Rican-American YouTuber. He played college football with the UCF Knights (NCAA team) of the University of Central Florida (UCF). De La Haye is known for ...
filed a lawsuit alleging that the university violated his First Amendment rights when it rescinded his full athletic scholarship over the income De La Haye made from his monetized YouTube channel, which he started before he attended college.
UCF The University of Central Florida (UCF) is a public research university whose main campus is in unincorporated Orange County, Florida. UCF also has nine smaller regional campuses throughout central Florida. It is part of the State University ...
argued De La Haye violated the
NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
policy forbidding student-athletes from using their likenesses to make money. De La Haye ultimately settled with
UCF The University of Central Florida (UCF) is a public research university whose main campus is in unincorporated Orange County, Florida. UCF also has nine smaller regional campuses throughout central Florida. It is part of the State University ...
so that he could obtain his degree from the university. *In June 2021 the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously affirmed a ruling in ''NCAA v. Alston'' that provides for an incremental increase in how college athletes can be compensated. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the court's opinion, which upheld a district court judge's decision that the NCAA was violating antitrust law by placing limits on the education-related benefits that schools can provide to athletes. The decision allows schools to provide their athletes with unlimited compensation as long as it is some way connected to their education. The idea that college athletes should not be paid, a fundamental tenet of the 115-year-old NCAA, has faced increasing scrutiny in recent years. Federal antitrust lawsuits have slowly eroded strict amateurism rules during the past decade.


Headquarters

The modern era of the NCAA began in July 1955 when its executive director,
Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...
native
Walter Byers Walter Byers (March 13, 1922 – May 26, 2015) was the first executive director of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Career Byers was the first executive director of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. He served from ...
, moved the organization's headquarters from the LaSalle Hotel in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
(where its offices were shared by the headquarters of the
Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...
) to the Fairfax Building in
Downtown Kansas City Downtown Kansas City is the central business district (CBD) of Kansas City, Missouri and the Kansas City metropolitan area. It is between the Missouri River in the north, to 31st Street in the south; and from the Kansas–Missouri state line east ...
. The move was intended to separate the NCAA from the direct influence of any individual conference and keep it centrally located. The Fairfax was a block from Municipal Auditorium which had hosted men's basketball Final Four games in 1940, 1941, and 1942. After Byers moved the headquarters to Kansas City, the championships would be held in Municipal Auditorium in 1953, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1961, and 1964. The Fairfax office consisted of three rooms with no air conditioning. Byers' staff consisted of four people: an assistant, two secretaries, and a bookkeeper. In 1964, the NCAA moved three blocks away to offices in the
Midland Theatre The Midland Theatre is a 3,000-seat theater located in the Power & Light District of Kansas City, Missouri, United States. The National Collegiate Athletic Association under Walter Byers had its headquarters in the building from the 1950s until ...
, moving again in 1973 to a $1.2 million building on on
Shawnee Mission Parkway Shawnee Mission Parkway is a stretch of roadway in Johnson County, Kansas and Jackson County, Missouri (only a fragment). Its western terminus at K-7 in Shawnee, Kansas and its eastern terminus at Ward Parkway in Kansas City, Missouri. The roa ...
in suburban
Mission, Kansas Mission is a city in Johnson County, Kansas, United States, and part of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 9,954. History An Indian mission was established in 1829 at the town's site, hence ...
. In 1989, the organization moved farther south to
Overland Park, Kansas Overland Park ( ) is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of Kansas. Located in Johnson County, Kansas, it is one of four principal cities in the Kansas City metropolitan area and the most populous suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. As o ...
. The new building was on and had of space. The NCAA was dissatisfied with its
Johnson County, Kansas Johnson County is a county in the U.S. state of Kansas, on the border with Missouri. As of the 2020 census, the population was 609,863, making it the most populous county in Kansas. Its county seat is Olathe. Largely suburban, the county conta ...
suburban location, noting that its location on the southern edges of the Kansas City suburbs was more than 40 minutes from
Kansas City International Airport Kansas City International Airport (originally Mid-Continent International Airport) is a public airport in Kansas City, Missouri located northwest of Downtown Kansas City in Platte County, Missouri., effective December 30, 2021. The airport o ...
. They also noted that the suburban location was not drawing visitors to its new visitors' center. In 1997, it asked for bids for a new headquarters. Various cities competed for a new headquarters with the two finalists being Kansas City and Indianapolis. Kansas City proposed to relocate the NCAA back downtown near the
Crown Center Crown Center is a shopping center and neighborhood located near Downtown Kansas City, Missouri between Gillham Road and Main Street to the east and west, and between OK/E 22nd St and E 27th St to the north and south. The shopping center is an ...
complex and would locate the visitors' center in
Union Station A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...
. However Kansas City's main sports venue
Kemper Arena The Hy-Vee Arena, previously known as Kemper Arena, is an indoor arena located in Kansas City, Missouri. Prior to conversion to a youth sports and community gymnasium facility, Kemper Arena was previously a 19,500-seat professional sports arena ...
was nearly 30 years old. Indianapolis argued that it was in fact more central than Kansas City in that two-thirds of the members are east of the
Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
. The 50,000-seat
RCA Dome The RCA Dome (originally Hoosier Dome) was a domed stadium in Indianapolis. It was the home of the Indianapolis Colts NFL franchise for 24 seasons (1984– 2007). It was completed at a cost of $77.5 million, as part of the Indiana Convention Ce ...
far eclipsed the 17,000-seat Kemper Arena. In 1999, the NCAA moved its 300-member staff to its new headquarters in the
White River State Park White River State Park is an urban park in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. Situated along the eastern and western banks of its namesake White River, the park covers . The park is home to numerous attractions, including the Eiteljorg Museum of A ...
in a four-story facility on the west edge of downtown
Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Mari ...
. Adjacent to the headquarters is the
NCAA Hall of Champions The NCAA Hall of Champions is an interactive museum and part of a three-building complex that houses a conference center and the corporate headquarters of both the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and National Federation of State Hi ...
.


Structure

The NCAA's Board of Governors (formerly known as the Executive Committee) is the main body within the NCAA. This body elects the NCAA's president. The NCAA's legislative structure is broken down into cabinets and committees, consisting of various representatives of its member schools. These may be broken down further into sub-committees. The legislation is then passed on to the Management Council, which oversees all the cabinets and committees, and also includes representatives from the schools, such as athletic directors and faculty advisers. Management Council legislation goes on to the Board of Directors, which consists of school presidents, for final approval. The NCAA national office staff provides support by acting as guides, liaisons, researchers, and by managing public and media relations. The NCAA runs the officiating software company
ArbiterSports ArbiterSports is the sports officiating software company of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and is a venture between two NCAA subsidiaries, Arbiter LLC and LLC. The company is based in Sandy, Utah. History The Arbiter assigning sy ...
, based in
Sandy, Utah Sandy is a city in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, located in Salt Lake County, Utah, United States. The population of Sandy was 87,461 at the 2010 census, making it the sixth-largest city in Utah. The population is currently estimated ...
, a joint venture between two subsidiaries of the NCAA, Arbiter LLC and eOfficials LLC. The NCAA's stated objective for the venture is to help improve the fairness, quality, and consistency of officiating across amateur athletics.


Presidents of the NCAA

The NCAA had no full-time administrator until 1951, when
Walter Byers Walter Byers (March 13, 1922 – May 26, 2015) was the first executive director of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Career Byers was the first executive director of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. He served from ...
was appointed executive director. In 1988, the title was changed to president. *
Walter Byers Walter Byers (March 13, 1922 – May 26, 2015) was the first executive director of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Career Byers was the first executive director of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. He served from ...
1951–1988 *
James Frank James Boisfeuillet Frank (born November 23, 1966) is a businessman from Wichita Falls, Texas, who is a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives from District 69, which encompasses Archer, Baylor, Clay, Foard, Knox, and Wichita ...
1981–1983 (Executive Director) *
Dick Schultz Dick Schultz (born September 5, 1929) is an American retired sports coach and administrator. He served as the head baseball coach at the University of Iowa from 1963 to 1970 and at the school's head men's basketball coach from 1970 to 1974. Schul ...
1988–1993 *
Judith Sweet Judith M. Sweet (born 1948) is an American sports executive. In the 1980s and 1990s, she was the first woman to be elected secretary-treasurer and president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. She was also the first female athletic d ...
1991–1993 *
Cedric Dempsey Cedric Warren Dempsey (born April 14, 1932) is a sports administrator who became the third executive director of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) from 1994 to 2003. Before leaving the post in 2002, Dempsey restructured the organ ...
1994–2002 *
Myles Brand Myles Neil Brand (May 17, 1942 – September 16, 2009) was a philosopher and university administrator who served as the 14th president of the University of Oregon, the 16th president of Indiana University, and the fourth president of the Natio ...
2003–2009 *
Jim Isch Jim Isch was the chief operating officer of NCAA. He was appointed to the role on August 13, 2010, having served as the interim executive director of the National Collegiate Athletic Association following the death of Myles Brand on September 1 ...
(interim) 2009–2010 *
Mark Emmert Mark Allen Emmert (born December 16, 1952) is the current president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. He is the fifth CEO of the NCAA; he was named as the incoming president on April 27, 2010, and assumed his duties on November 1, ...
2010–2023 *
Charlie Baker Charles Duane Baker Jr. (born November 13, 1956) is an American politician and businessman serving as the 72nd governor of Massachusetts since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, Baker was a cabinet official under two governors of Massach ...
(assumes position on March 1, 2023)


Chief medical officer

In 2013, the NCAA hired
Brian Hainline Brian Hainline is a medical researcher and the chief medical officer of the National Collegiate Athletic Association in the United States. Prior to taking that position in 2013, he was the chief medical officer of the United States Tennis Associat ...
as its first
chief medical officer Chief medical officer (CMO) is the title used in many countries for the senior government official designated head of medical services, sometimes at the national level. The post is held by a physician who serves to advise and lead a team of medical ...
.


Division history


"National Collegiate" sports

For some less-popular sports, the NCAA does not separate teams into their usual divisions and instead holds only one tournament to decide a single national champion between all three divisions (except for women's ice hockey and men's indoor volleyball, where the National Collegiate championship only features teams from Division I and Division II and a separate championship is contested for only Division III). The 11 sports which use the National Collegiate format, also called the single-division format, are women's bowling, fencing, men's gymnastics, women's gymnastics, women's ice hockey, rifle, skiing, men's indoor volleyball, women's beach volleyball, men's water polo, and women's water polo. The NCAA considers a National Collegiate title equivalent to a Division I title, even if the champion is a member of Division II or III for other sports. These championships are largely dominated by teams that are otherwise members of Division I, but current non-Division I teams have won 40 National Collegiate championships since the University Division/College Division split as of 2022 (2 in bowling, 20 in fencing, 8 in women's ice hockey, and 10 in rifle). Division III schools are allowed to grant athletic scholarships to students who compete in National Collegiate sports, though most do not. Men's ice hockey uses a similar but not identical "National Collegiate" format as women's ice hockey and men's indoor volleyball (Division III has its own championship but several Division III teams compete in Division I for men's ice hockey), but its top-level championship is styled as a "Division I" championship. While the NCAA has not explained why it is the only sport with this distinction, the NCAA held a Division II championship from 1978–1984 and again from 1993–1999. As of 2022, 12 Division I men's ice hockey championships have been won by current non-Division I teams since the University Division/College Division split. Like with sports officially noted as "National Collegiate", schools that are otherwise members of Division III who compete in Division I for men's ice hockey are allowed to grant athletic scholarships for the sport. All sports used the National Collegiate format until 1957, when the NCAA was split into the University Division (now Division I) and College Division (which was split into Divisions II and III in 1973, with the College Division's historic records inherited by Division II). Even after the split, several sports (all of which were men's sports at the time as the NCAA did not sanction women's sports until the 1980s) continued to use the National Collegiate format including baseball, golf, soccer, swimming & diving, tennis, outdoor track & field, and wrestling. Sports that began after the split which once used the format and no longer do include men's and women's lacrosse, women's rowing, women's soccer, and men's and women's indoor track & field. Some sports, including men's and women's golf, men's ice hockey, men's lacrosse, and men's and women's soccer used to have a combined championship between Divisions II and III, but these were known as a "Division II/III championship" in most cases. The NCAA considered these titles equivalent to a Division II title. No sport currently uses this format.


Player eligibility

To participate in college athletics in their freshman year, the NCAA requires that students meet three criteria: having graduated from high school, be completing the minimum required academic courses, and having qualifying grade-point average (GPA). The 16 academic credits are four courses in English, two courses in math, two classes in social science, two in natural or physical science, and one additional course in English, math, natural or physical science, or another academic course such as a foreign language. To meet the Division I requirements for grade point average, the lowest possible high school GPA a student may have to be eligible with to play in their freshman year is a 2.30 (2.20 for Division II or III), but they are allowed to play beginning in their second year with a GPA of 2.00.Hishinuma and Fremstad, 589–591 As of the 2017–18 school year, a high school student may sign a
letter of intent A letter of intent (LOI or LoI, or Letter of Intent) is a document outlining the understanding between two or more parties which they intend to formalize in a contract, legally binding agreement. The concept is similar to a Heads of agreement ( ...
to enter and play football for a Division I or Division II college in either of two periods. The first, introduced in 2017–18, is a three-day period in mid-December, coinciding with the first three days of the previously existing signing period for junior college players. The second period, which before 2017 was the only one allowed for signings of high school players, starts on the first Wednesday in February. In August 2011, the NCAA announced plans to raise academic requirements for postseason competition, including its two most prominent competitions, football's now-defunct
Bowl Championship Series The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was a selection system that created four or five bowl game match-ups involving eight or ten of the top ranked teams in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of American college football, including ...
(replaced in 2014 by 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 ...
) and the Division I men's basketball tournament; the new requirement, which are based on an "
Academic Progress Rate The Academic Progress Rate (APR) is a measure introduced by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the nonprofit association that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, to tr ...
" (APR) that measures retention and graduation rates, and is calculated on a four-year, rolling basis. The changes raise the rate from 900 to 930, which represents a 50% graduation rate. Student-athletes can accept prize money from tournaments or competitions if they do not exceed the total expenses from the event. For example, during high school, D1 tennis players may take up to $10,000 in total prize money. If the student surpassed the amount of $10,000 of prize money in a calendar year, they would lose eligibility. Students are generally allowed to compete athletically for four years. Athletes are allowed to sit out a year while still attending school but not lose a year of eligibility by redshirting. In other words, a student has five years from the time they begin college to play four seasons.


NCAA sponsored sports

The NCAA currently awards 90 national championships yearly – 46 women's, 41 men's, and 3 coed championships for fencing, rifle, and skiing. Sports sanctioned by the NCAA include the following:
basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
,
baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
(men),
beach volleyball Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two or more players on a sand court divided by a net. Similar to indoor volleyball, the objective of the game is to send the ball over the net and to ground it on the opponent's side of the ...
(women),
softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...
(women),
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
(men), cross country,
field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ci ...
(women),
bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), though ...
(women),
golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...
,
fencing Fencing is a group of three related combat sports. The three disciplines in modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre (also ''saber''); winning points are made through the weapon's contact with an opponent. A fourth discipline, s ...
(coeducational),
lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensively ...
,
soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
,
gymnastics Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, dedication and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, shou ...
,
rowing Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically atta ...
(women),
volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...
,
ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...
,
water polo Water polo is a competitive team sport played in water between two teams of seven players each. The game consists of four quarters in which the teams attempt to score goals by throwing the ball into the opposing team's goal. The team with the ...
,
rifle A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves ( rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with ...
(coeducational),
tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
,
skiing Skiing is the use of skis to glide on snow. Variations of purpose include basic transport, a recreational activity, or a competitive winter sport. Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IO ...
(coeducational),
track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...
,
swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...
and
diving Diving most often refers to: * Diving (sport), the sport of jumping into deep water * Underwater diving, human activity underwater for recreational or occupational purposes Diving or Dive may also refer to: Sports * Dive (American football), a ...
, and
wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...
(men). The newest sport to be officially sanctioned is beach volleyball, which held its
first championship The FIRST Championship is a four-day robotics championship held annually in April at which FIRST student robotics teams compete. For several years, the event was held at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia, but moved to the Edward Jones Dome in ...
in spring 2016. The NCAA had called the sport "sand volleyball" until June 23, 2015, when it announced that it would use the internationally recognized name of "beach volleyball". The Football Bowl Subdivision of Division I determines its own champion separately from the NCAA via 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 ...
; this is not an official NCAA championship (see below). The NCAA awards championships in the sports listed below. For the three coeducational championships, women's dates reflect the first championship that was open to women. * In addition to the sports above, the NCAA sanctioned a boxing championship from 1932 to 1960. The NCAA discontinued boxing following declines in the sport during the 1950s and following the death of a boxer at the 1960 NCAA tournament. * The NCAA also formerly sanctioned a trampoline championship. Prior to 1969, it was one of the events in the men's gymnastics championship, but it was given its own championship in 1969 and 1970 before being dropped completely. The number of teams (school programs) that compete in each sport in their respective division as of the 2019–2020 season are as follows:


Men's programs


Women's programs

Notes:


Emerging sports for women

In addition to the above sports, the NCAA recognizes Emerging Sports for Women. These sports have scholarship limitations for each sport, but do not currently have officially sanctioned NCAA championships. A member institution may use these sports to meet the required level of sports sponsorship for its division. An "Emerging Sport" must gain championship status (minimum 40 varsity programs for team sports, except 28 for Division III) within 10 years, or show steady progress toward that goal to remain on the list. Until then, it is under the auspices of the NCAA and its respective institutions. Emerging Sport status allows for competition to include club teams to satisfy the minimum number of competitions bylaw established by the NCAA. The five sports currently designated as Emerging Sports for Women are: *
Acrobatics Acrobatics () is the performance of human feats of balance, agility, and motor coordination. Acrobatic skills are used in performing arts, sporting events, and martial arts. Extensive use of acrobatic skills are most often performed in acro ...
& tumbling *
Equestrian The word equestrian is a reference to equestrianism, or horseback riding, derived from Latin ' and ', "horse". Horseback riding (or Riding in British English) Examples of this are: * Equestrian sports *Equestrian order, one of the upper classes i ...
*
Rugby Rugby may refer to: Sport * Rugby football in many forms: ** Rugby league: 13 players per side *** Masters Rugby League *** Mod league *** Rugby league nines *** Rugby league sevens *** Touch (sport) *** Wheelchair rugby league ** Rugby union: 1 ...
*
Triathlon A triathlon is an endurance multisport race consisting of Swimming (sport), swimming, Cycle sport, cycling, and running over various distances. Triathletes compete for fastest overall completion time, racing each segment sequentially with the t ...
*
Wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...


Sports added and dropped

The popularity of each of these sports programs has changed over time. Between 1988–89 and 2010–11, NCAA schools had net additions of 510 men's teams and 2,703 women's teams. The following tables show the changes over time in the number of NCAA schools across all three divisions combined sponsoring each of the men's and women's team sports.


Men's sports

The men's sports with the biggest net gains during the 1988/89 to 2010/11 period were indoor track and field, lacrosse, and cross country (each with more than 100 net gains). The men's sports with the biggest losses were wrestling (−104 teams), tennis, and rifle; the men's team sport with the most net losses was water polo. Other reports show that 355 college wrestling programs have been eliminated since 2000; 212 men's gymnastics programs have been eliminated since 1969 with only 17 programs remaining as of 2013. Additionally, eight NCAA sports—all men's sports—were sponsored by fewer Division I schools in 2020 than in 1990, despite the D-I membership having increased by nearly 60 schools during that period. Four of these sports, namely wrestling, swimming & diving, gymnastics, and tennis, lost more than 20 net teams during that timeframe. As a proportion of D-I membership, men's tennis took the greatest hit; 71.5% of D-I members had men's tennis in 2020, compared to 93.2% in 1990. The following table lists the men's individual DI sports with at least 5,000 participating athletes. Sports are ranked by number of athletes.


Women's sports

The women's sports with the biggest net gains during the 1988–89 to 2010–11 period were soccer (+599 teams), golf, and indoor track and field; no women's sports programs experienced double-digit net losses. The following table lists the women's individual NCAA sports with at least 1,000 participating athletes. Sports are ranked by number of athletes. * Equestrian was not a women's varsity sport in 1982 and the NCAA report does not include the number of teams for that year. Equestrian is first listed in the NCAA report in 1988–89 with 41 teams, and so the number of teams for that season is listed in the table above.


Championships


Trophies

For every NCAA sanctioned sport other than Division I FBS football, the NCAA awards trophies with gold, silver, and bronze plating for the first-, second-, and third-place teams respectively. In the case of the NCAA basketball tournaments, both semifinalists who did not make the championship game receive bronze plated trophies for third place (prior to 1982 the teams played a "consolation" game to determine third place). Similar trophies are awarded to both semifinalists in the NCAA football tournaments (which are conducted in Division I FCS and both lower divisions), which have never had a third-place game. Winning teams maintain permanent possession of these trophies unless it is later found that they were won via serious rules violations. Starting with the 2001–02 season, and again in the 2007–08 season, the trophies were changed. Starting in the 2006 basketball season, teams that make the Final Four in the Division I tournament receive bronze-plated "regional championship" trophies upon winning their Regional Championship which state the region they won and have the Final Four logo. The teams that make the National Championship game receive an additional trophy that is gold-plated for the winner. Starting in the mid-1990s, the National Champions in men's and women's basketball receive an elaborate trophy with a black marble base and crystal "neck" with a removable crystal basketball following the presentation of the standard NCAA Championship trophy. As of May 30, 2022,
Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...
,
UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
, and
Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...
(USC) have the most NCAA championships. Stanford has won 131 and UCLA has won 119 NCAA team championships in men's and women's sports, while USC is third with 111.


Football Bowl Subdivision

The NCAA has never sanctioned an official championship for its highest level of football, now known as
Division I FBS The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). A ...
. Instead, several outside bodies award their own titles. The NCAA does not hold a championship tournament or game for Division I FBS football. In the past, teams that placed first in any of a number of season-ending media polls, most notable the
AP Poll The Associated Press poll (AP poll) provides weekly rankings of the top 25 NCAA teams in one of three Division I college sports: football, men's basketball and women's basketball. The rankings are compiled by polling 62 sportswriters and broadca ...
of writers and the
Coaches Poll The Coaches Poll is a weekly ranking of the top 25 NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) college football, Division I college basketball, and Division I college baseball teams. The football version of the poll has been known officially ...
, were said to have won the "
national championship A national championship(s) is the top achievement for any sport or competition, contest within a league of a particular nation or nation state. The title is usually awarded by contests, ranking systems, stature, ability, etc. This determines the be ...
". Starting in 2014, 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 ...
– a consortium of the conferences and
independent schools An independent school is independent in its finances and governance. Also known as private schools, non-governmental, privately funded, or non-state schools, they are not administered by local, state or national governments. In British Eng ...
that compete in Division I FBS and six
bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivis ...
s – has arranged to place the top four teams (based on a thirteen-member committee that selects and seeds the teams) into two semifinal games, with the winners advancing to compete in the
College Football Playoff National Championship The College Football Playoff National Championship is a post-season college football bowl game, used to determine a national champion of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), which began play in the 2014 college football season. ...
, which is not officially sanctioned or recognized by the NCAA. The winner of the game receives a trophy; since the NCAA awards no national championship for Division I FBS football, this trophy does not denote ''NCAA'' as other NCAA college sports national championship trophies do.


Conferences

The NCAA is divided into three levels of conferences, Division I, Division II, and Division III, organized in declining program size, as well as numerous sub-divisions. Most schools belong to a primary "multisport conference" for most of their sports. A schools may also belong to another conference for a particular sport. The Division I, Division II, and Division III "Independents" listed below are not conferences per se; it is a designation used for schools that do not belong to a conference for a particular sport. These schools may still have conference memberships for other sports. For example, Notre Dame primarily belongs to the
Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...
for most sports, but its ice hockey team competes in the
Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...
and its football team is an independent.


Division I

Among the NCAA regulations, each Division I conference defined as "multisport conference" must have at least seven active Division I member institutions. These conferences must sponsor at least 12 sports, including six sports for men and six for women. At least seven active members in a multisport conference must sponsor both men's and women's basketball. For non-football conferences, they must sponsor at least two men's team sports other than basketball. Teams that consist of both men and women are counted as men's teams for sports sponsorship purposes. For all institutions in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, they have additional requirements. Among them, they must participate in conference play in at least six men's and eight women's sports, including football, men's and women's basketball, and at least two other women's team sports. ;Notes :* FBS conferences in football are denoted with an asterisk (*) :* FCS conferences in football are denoted with two asterisks (**) :* Conferences that do not sponsor football or basketball are in ''italics'' *
American Athletic Conference The American Athletic Conference (The American or AAC) is an American collegiate athletic conference, featuring 11 member universities and five affiliate member universities that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) ...
(The American) * *
America East Conference The America East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I founded in 1979, whose members are located in the Northeastern United States. The conference has nine core members including eight public research u ...
*
ASUN Conference The ASUN Conference, formerly the Atlantic Sun Conference, is a collegiate athletic conference operating mostly in the Southeastern United States. The league participates at the NCAA Division I level, and began sponsoring football at the Divisio ...
** *
Atlantic 10 Conference The Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I. The A-10's member schools are located in states mostly on the United States Eastern ...
(A-10) *
Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...
(ACC) * *
Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its ...
(Big 12) * *
Big East Conference The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in ten men's sports and twelve women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the eleven full-member schools are primarily located in Northeast and M ...
*
Big Sky Conference The Big Sky Conference (BSC) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division I with football competing in the Football Championship Subdivision. Member institutions are located in the western United States in the eigh ...
** *
Big South Conference The Big South Conference is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division I. Originally a non-football conference, the Big South began sponsoring football in 2002 as part of the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). Th ...
** *
Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...
(Big Ten or B1G) * *
Big West Conference The Big West Conference (BWC) is an American collegiate athletic conference whose member institutions participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I. The conference was originally formed on July 1, 1969, as the Pacific ...
* ''
Coastal Collegiate Sports Association The Coastal Collegiate Sports Association is an NCAA Division I college athletic conference. Established in 2008, the Coastal Collegiate Swimming Association (CCSA) was originally developed by four regional Division I conferences — the ASU ...
'' (CCSA) *
Colonial Athletic Association The Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division I whose full members are located in East Coast states from Massachusetts to South Carolina. Most of its members are public universi ...
(CAA) ** *
Conference USA Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose current member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA's offices are l ...
(C-USA) * *
Horizon League The Horizon League is an 11-school collegiate athletic conference in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I, whose members are located in and near the Great Lakes region. The Horizon League founded in 1979 as the Midw ...
*
Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools ...
** *
Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC, ) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I. Of its current 11 full members, 10 are located in three states of the northeastern United States: Connecticut, New Jersey, and N ...
(MAAC) *
Mid-American Conference The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I collegiate athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Nine of the twel ...
(MAC) * *
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) is a collegiate athletic conference whose full members are historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the Southeastern and the Mid-Atlantic United States. It participates in the National C ...
(MEAC) ** *
Missouri Valley Conference The Missouri Valley Conference (also called MVC or simply "The Valley") is the third-oldest collegiate athletic conference in the United States. The conference's members are primarily located in the midwest. History The MVC was established ...
(MVC) * ''
Mountain Pacific Sports Federation The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) is a college athletic conference with members located mostly in the western United States, although it now has members as far east as Pennsylvania. The conference participates at the NCAA Division I ...
'' (MPSF) *
Mountain West Conference 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 ...
(MW) * *
Northeast Conference The Northeast Conference (NEC) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools are members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Teams in the NEC compete in Division I for all sports; football competes in the Division I Foo ...
(NEC) ** *
Ohio Valley Conference The Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference which operates in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern and Southeastern United States, Southeastern United States. It participates in NCAA Divisi ...
(OVC) ** *
Pac-12 Conference The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...
(Pac-12) * *
Patriot League The Patriot League is a collegiate athletic conference comprising private institutions of higher education and two United States service academies based in the Northeastern United States. Outside the Ivy League, it is among the most selective gr ...
** *
Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities of ...
(SEC) * *
Southern Conference The Southern Conference (SoCon) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. Southern Conference football teams compete in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly ...
(SoCon) ** *
Southland Conference The Southland Conference, abbreviated as SLC, is a collegiate athletic conference which operates in the South Central United States (specifically Texas and Louisiana). It participates in the NCAA's Division I for all sports; for football, it pa ...
** *
Southwestern Athletic Conference The Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) is a collegiate athletic conference headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, which is made up of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the Southern United States. It participates in t ...
(SWAC) ** *
The Summit League ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
(The Summit) *
Sun Belt Conference The Sun Belt Conference (SBC) is a collegiate athletic conference that has been affiliated with the NCAA's Division I since 1976. Originally a non-football conference, the Sun Belt began sponsoring football in 2001. Its football teams participa ...
(SBC) * *
West Coast Conference The West Coast Conference (WCC) — known as the California Basketball Association from 1952 to 1956 and then as the West Coast Athletic Conference until 1989 — is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I consisting of ...
(WCC) *
Western Athletic Conference The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is an NCAA Division I conference. The WAC covers a broad expanse of the western United States with member institutions located in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, Washington (state), Washington, and Texa ...
(WAC) ** * NCAA Division I Independents


Division I FCS football-only conferences

*
Missouri Valley Football Conference The Missouri Valley Football Conference (MVFC), formerly the Gateway Football Conference, is a collegiate athletic conference which operates in the Midwestern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I Football Championship Subdivis ...
*
Pioneer Football League The Pioneer Football League (PFL) is a collegiate athletic conference which operates in the United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) as a football-only conference. It has member s ...


Division I hockey-only conferences

Division I ice hockey has a different conference structure than the above multisport conferences. These schools have memberships in other conferences for other sports. ;Men only *
Atlantic Hockey The Atlantic Hockey Association (AHA) is an NCAA Men's Division I Ice Hockey conference which operates primarily in the northeastern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as an ice hockey-only conference. Unlike several other c ...
*
Central Collegiate Hockey Association The Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) is a college athletic conference that participates in the NCAA's Division I as a hockey-only conference. The current CCHA began play in the 2021–22 season; a previous incarnation, which the curre ...
(CCHA) – revived in 2021; previously operated from 1971–2013 *
National Collegiate Hockey Conference The National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) is an NCAA men's Division I hockey conference formed on July 9, 2011. The league began playing for the 2013–14 season, the same season that the Big Ten Conference began competition, as a combina ...
(NCHC) ;Women only *
College Hockey America College Hockey America (CHA) is a college ice hockey conference in the United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as a hockey-only conference. The conference is made up of five women’s teams, with two in Pennsylvania; two in New Y ...
*
New England Women's Hockey Alliance The New England Women's Hockey Alliance (NEWHA) is a women's college ice hockey conference in the United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as a hockey-only conference. As of the current 2022–23 season, the conference is made up o ...
(NEWHA) *
Western Collegiate Hockey Association The Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) is a college athletic conference which operates in the Midwestern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as a women's ice hockey-only conference. From 1951 to 1999, it operated a ...
(WCHA) ;Men and women *
ECAC Hockey ECAC Hockey is one of the six conferences that compete in NCAA Division I ice hockey. The conference used to be affiliated with the Eastern College Athletic Conference, a consortium of over 300 colleges in the eastern United States. This relati ...
*
Hockey East The Hockey East Association, also known as Hockey East, is a college ice hockey conference which operates entirely in New England. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as a hockey-only conference. Hockey East came into existence in 1984 for ...


Division II

Among the NCAA regulations, Division II institutions must sponsor at least five sports for men and five for women (or four for men and six for women), with two team sports for each sex, and each playing season represented by each sex. Teams that consist of both men and women are counted as men's teams for sports sponsorship purposes. *
California Collegiate Athletic Association The California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level. All of its current members are public universities, and upon UC ...
(CCAA) *
Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference The Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (or CACC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level. Its fourteen member institutions are located in the northeastern ...
(CACC) *
Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association The Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level. CIAA institutions mostly consist of historically black coll ...
(CIAA) *
Conference Carolinas Conference Carolinas, formerly known as the Carolinas-Virginia Athletic Conference (CVAC) or the Carolinas Conference, is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) primarily at the Divisio ...
(CC) *
East Coast Conference The East Coast Conference (ECC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level. Member institutions are located in the northeastern United States in the states of C ...
(ECC) *
Great American Conference The Great American Conference (GAC) is a List of NCAA conferences, college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the NCAA Division II, Division II level, with headquarters located in Russellvill ...
(GAC) * Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) * Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) * Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC) * Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) * Gulf South Conference (GSC) * Lone Star Conference (LSC) * Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) * Mountain East Conference (MEC) * Northeast-10 Conference (NE-10) * Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) * Pacific West Conference (PacWest) * Peach Belt Conference (PBC) * Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) * Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) * South Atlantic Conference (SAC) * Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) * Sunshine State Conference (SSC) * NCAA Division II independent schools, NCAA Division II Independents


Division III

Unlike the other two divisions, Division III institutions cannot offer athletic scholarships. Among the other NCAA Division III requirements, all institutions, regardless of enrollment, must sponsor at least three team sports for each sex/gender, and each playing season represented by each sex/gender. Furthermore, a sports sponsorship rule unique to Division III is that the total number of sports that must be sponsored differs by a school's full-time undergraduate enrollment: schools with an enrollment of 1,000 or fewer must sponsor at least five sports for men and five for women; those with larger enrollments must sponsor six men's and six women's sports. As in the other divisions, teams that include both men and women are treated as men's sports for the purpose of these regulations. * Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) * American Rivers Conference (ARC) * American Southwest Conference (ASC) * Atlantic East Conference (AEC) * Centennial Conference (Centennial) * City University of New York Athletic Conference (CUNYAC) * Coast to Coast Athletic Conference (C2C) * College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) * Collegiate Conference of the South (CCS) * Colonial States Athletic Conference (CSAC) * Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) ** CCC fully absorbed Commonwealth Coast Football, previously a CCC-administered but technically separate football-only league, in 2022. The football league was originally the New England Football Conference before being taken over by CCC in 2017. * Empire 8 (E8) * Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) * Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) * Landmark Conference (Landmark) * Liberty League (Liberty) * Little East Conference (LEC) * Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC) * Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) * Middle Atlantic Conferences (MAC) – An umbrella organization of the following three conferences: ** MAC Commonwealth Conference, MAC Commonwealth, sponsoring competition in 14 sports, but not football ** MAC Freedom Conference, MAC Freedom, sponsoring competition in the same set of 14 sports ** Middle Atlantic Conference, sponsoring 13 sports, including football * Midwest Conference (Midwest or MWC) * Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) * New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) * New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) * New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) * New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) * North Atlantic Conference (NAC) * North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) * Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) * Northwest Conference (NWC) * Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) * Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) * Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) * Skyline Conference (Skyline) * Southern Athletic Association (SAA) * Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) * Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) * State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) * St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SLIAC) * United East Conference * University Athletic Association (UAA) * Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) * USA South Athletic Conference (USA South) * Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) * NCAA Division III independent schools, NCAA Division III Independents


Division III football-only conferences

* Eastern Collegiate Football Conference (ECFC)


Other Division III single-sport conferences

* Continental Volleyball Conference (CVC) – men's volleyball * ECAC East – men's and women's ice hockey * ECAC Northeast – men's ice hockey * ECAC West – men's and women's ice hockey * Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League (MCVL) – men's volleyball * Midwest Lacrosse Conference (MLC) – men's lacrosse * Midwest Women's Lacrosse Conference (MWLC) – women's lacrosse * Northern Collegiate Hockey Association (NCHA) – men's and women's ice hockey * Ohio River Lacrosse Conference (ORLC) – men's and women's lacrosse * United Collegiate Hockey Conference (UCHC) – men's and women's ice hockey * United Volleyball Conference (UVC) – men's volleyball


Media

The NCAA has current media rights contracts with CBS Sports, CBS Sports Network,
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 ...
, ESPN Plus, Turner Sports and the Golf Channel for coverage of its 88 championships. According to the official NCAA website, ESPN and its associated networks have rights to 21 championships, CBS to 65, Turner Sports to one and National Broadcasting Company, NBC's Golf Channel to two. The following are the most prominent championships and rights holders: * CBS: Men's basketball (NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, NCAA March Madness (TV program), with Turner Sports, and NCAA Division II men's basketball tournament), track and field, ice hockey (women's division I), golf (Divisions II and III, both genders) * ESPN: Women's basketball (all divisions), baseball, softball, ice hockey (men's Division I), football (all divisions including Div. I FCS), soccer (Division I for both genders) * Turner Sports: NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament with CBS *NBC and Golf Channel: golf (Division I, both genders) Westwood One, WestwoodOne has exclusive radio rights to the men's and women's basketball Final Fours to the College World Series, Men's College World Series (baseball). DirecTV has an exclusive package expanding CBS' coverage of the men's basketball tournament. From 1998 to 2013, Electronic Arts had a license to develop college sports video games with the NCAA's branding, which included its ''NCAA Football (video game series), NCAA Football'', ''NCAA Basketball series, NCAA Basketball'' (formerly ''NCAA March Madness'') and ''MVP Baseball series, MVP Baseball'' series. The NCAA's licensing was not required to produce the games, as rights to use teams are not licensed through the NCAA, but through entities such as individual schools and the Collegiate Licensing Company. EA only acquired the license so that it could officially incorporate the Division I men's basketball tournament into its college basketball game series. The NCAA withdrew EA's license due to uncertainties surrounding a series of lawsuits, most notably ''
O'Bannon v. NCAA ''O'Bannon v. NCAA'', 802 F.3d 1049 (9th Cir. 2015) was an United States antitrust law, antitrust class action lawsuit filed against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The lawsuit, which former UCLA Bruins men's basketball, UCL ...
'', involving the use of player likenesses in college sports video games.


Office of Inclusion


Inclusion and Diversity Campaign

The week-long program took place October 1–5, 2018. The aim was to utilize social media platforms in order to promote diversity and inclusion within intercollegiate athletics. Throughout the NCAA's history, there has been controversy as to the levels of diversity present within intercollegiate athletics, and this campaign is the NCAA's most straightforward approach to combatting these issues.


NCAA Inclusion Statement

As a core value, the NCAA believes in and is committed to diversity, inclusion and gender equity among its student-athletes, coaches and administrators. It seeks to establish and maintain an inclusive culture that fosters equitable participation for student-athletes and career opportunities for coaches and administrators from diverse backgrounds. Diversity and inclusion improve the learning environment for all student-athletes and enhance excellence within the Association. The Office of Inclusion will provide or enable programming and education, which sustains foundations of a diverse and inclusive culture across dimensions of diversity including but not limited to age, race, sex, class, national origin, creed, educational background, religion, gender identity, disability, gender expression, geographical location, income, marital status, parental status, sexual orientation and work experiences. This statement was adopted by the NCAA Executive Committee in April 2010, and amended by the NCAA Board of Governors in April 2017.


Gender equity and Title IX

While no concrete criteria are given as to a state of Gender equality, gender equity on campuses, an athletics program is considered gender equitable when both women's and men's sports programs reach a consensus. The basis of
Title IX Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other educat ...
, when amended in 1972 to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 1964 Civil Rights Act, criminalized discrimination on the basis of sex. This plays into intercollegiate athletics in that it helps to maintain gender equity and inclusion in intercollegiate athletics. The NCAA provides many resources to provide information and enforce this amendment. The NCAA has kept these core values central to its decisions regarding the allocation of championship bids. In April 2016, the Board of Governors announced new requirements for host cities that include protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity for all people involved in the event. This decision was prompted by several states passing laws that permit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in accordance with religious beliefs.


LGBTQ

The LGBT, LGBTQ community has been under scrutiny and controversy in the public eye of collegiate athletics, but the NCAA moves to support the inclusion of these groups. The NCAA provides many resources concerning the education of the college community on this topic and policies in order to foster diversity. Title IX protects the transgender community within intercollegiate athletics and on college campuses. On January 19, 2022, the NCAA approved a new policy for transgender athletes, effective immediately, and this replaced their previous policy, which was in place since 2011. Now, the participation of transgender athletes in a particular sport is generally to be governed by the rules of the sport’s national governing body, international federation policy, or IOC policy criteria (though an NCAA committee may provide its own recommendation). This action prompted immediate critique from LGBTQ advocates, including Athlete Ally and former NCAA LGBTQ OneTeam facilitator Dorian Rhea Debussy. Previously, the NCAA used testosterone levels to qualify transgender athletes for participation. A transgender male student-athlete was not allowed to compete on a male sports team unless they had undergone medical treatment of testosterone for gender transition, and a transgender female student-athlete was not allowed to compete on a women's sports team until completing one calendar year of testosterone suppression treatment. Under this policy, transgender males were ineligible to compete on a women's team, and transgender females were ineligible to compete on a men's team, without changing the team's status to be a mixed team. In December 2021, John Lohn, the editor-in-chief of Swimming World, criticised NCAA policy; writing about transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, he argued that the "one-year suppressant requirement is not nearly stringent enough to create a level playing field between Thomas and the biological females against whom she is racing". In 2010, the NCAA Executive Committee announced its support and commitment to diversity, inclusion, and gender equality among its student-athletes, coaches, and administrators. The statement included the NCAA's commitment to ensuring that all students have equal opportunities to achieve their academic goals, and coaches and administrators have equal opportunities for career development in a climate of respect. In 2012, the LGBTQ Subcommittee of the NCAA association-wide Committee on Women's Athletics and the Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee commissioned ''Champions of Respect,'' a document that provides resources and advocacy that promotes inclusion and equality for LGBTQ student-athletes, coaches, administrators and all others associated with intercollegiate athletics''.'' This resource uses guides from the Women's Sports Foundation It Takes a Team! project for addressing issues related to LGBTQ equality in intercollegiate athletics. The document provides information on specific issues LGBTQ sportspeople face, similarities and differences of these issues on women's and men's teams, policy recommendations and best practices, and legal resources and court cases. The NCAA expressed concern over Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act (Indiana), Religious Freedom Restoration Act that allows businesses to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation. This bill was proposed just before Indianapolis was set to host the 2015 Men's Basketball Final Four tournament. The bill clashed with the NCAA core values of inclusion and equality, and forced the NCAA to consider moving events out of Indiana. Under pressure from across the nation and fearing the economic loss of being banned from hosting NCAA events, the governor of Indiana, Mike Pence, revised the bill so that businesses could not discriminate based on sexual orientation, race, religion, or disability. The NCAA accepted the revised bill and continues to host events in Indiana. The bill was enacted into law on July 1, 2015. On September 12, 2016, the NCAA announced that it would pull all seven planned championship events out of North Carolina for the 2016–2017 academic year. This decision was a response to the state passing the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act (H.B. 2) on March 23, 2016. This law requires people to use public restrooms that correspond with their sex assigned at birth and stops cities from passing laws that protect against discrimination towards gay and transgender people. The NCAA Board of Governors determined that this law would make ensuring an inclusive atmosphere in the host communities challenging, and relocating these championship events best reflects the association's commitment to maintaining an environment that is consistent with its core values. North Carolina has lost the opportunity to host the 2018 Final Four Tournament which was scheduled to be in Charlotte, but is relocated to San Antonio. If H.B. 2 is not repealed, North Carolina could be barred from bidding for events from 2019 to 2022.


Race and ethnicity

Racial/Ethnic minority groups in the NCAA are protected by inclusion and diversity policies put in place to increase sensitivity and awareness to the issues and challenges faced across intercollegiate athletics. The NCAA provides a demographics database that can be openly viewed by the public. Historically, the NCAA has used its authority in deciding on host cities to promote its core values. The Association also prohibits championship events in states that display the Confederate flag, and at member schools that have abusive or offensive nicknames or mascots based on Native American imagery. Board members wish to ensure that anyone associated with an NCAA championship event will be treated with fairness and respect.


Student-athletes with disabilities

The NCAA defines a disability as a current impairment that has a substantial educational impact on a student's academic performance and requires accommodation. Student-Athletes with disabilities are given education accommodations along with an adapted sports model. The NCAA hosts adapted sports championships for both track and field and swimming and diving as of 2015.


International student athletes

Over the last two decades recruiting international athletes has become a growing trend among NCAA institutions. For example, most German athletes outside of Germany are based at US universities. For many European athletes, the American universities are the only option to pursue an academic and athletic career at the same time. Many of these students come to the US with high academic expectations and aspirations.


College team name changes

As of 2018, there has been a continuation of changing school mascots that are said by some to be based on racist or offensive stereotypes. Universities under NCAA policy are under scrutiny for specifically Native American-inspired mascots. While many colleges have changed their mascots, some have gotten legal permission from the tribe represented and will continue to bear the mascot. This Native American mascot controversy has not been completely settled; however, many issues have been resolved. Here is a list of notable colleges that changed Native American mascots and/or nicknames in recent history: * Stanford – Indians to Cardinals (1972); became Cardinal in 1981 * UMass – Redmen and Redwomen to Minutemen and Minutewomen (1972) * Dartmouth – Indians to Big Green (1974) * Siena – Indians to Saints (1988) * Eastern Michigan – Hurons to Eagles (1991) * St. John's (NY) – Redmen to Red Storm (1994) * Marquette – Warriors to Golden Eagles (1994) * Chattanooga – Moccasins to Mocs, suggestive of mockingbirds (1996) * Miami (OH) – Redskins to RedHawks (1997) * Seattle – Chieftains to Redhawks (2000) *Colgate - Red Raiders to Raiders (2001) *Quinnipiac - Braves to Bobcats (2002) * Southeast Missouri State – Indians (men) and Otahkians (women) to Redhawks (2005) * Louisiana–Monroe – Indians to Warhawks (2006) * Arkansas State – Indians to Red Wolves (2008) * North Dakota – Formally dropped Fighting Sioux in 2012; adopted Fighting Hawks in 2015 Others: * Illinois – Removed Chief Illiniwek as official symbol in 2007. Athletics teams are still called Fighting Illini. * Bradley, Alcorn State – Both schools stopped using Native American mascots but have retained their Braves nickname. * William & Mary – Adjusted Tribe logo to remove feathers to comply with NCAA. Athletics teams are still called Tribe. (2007) * Chattanooga – removed the mascot, Chief Moccanooga and the Moccasin Shoe imagery in 1996; Kept the term, "Mocs", but reassigned its representation to the official State Bird. Of note: Utah (Utes), Central Michigan (Chippewas), Florida State (Seminoles) and Mississippi College (Choctaws) all appealed successfully to the NCAA after being deemed "hostile and offensive." Each cited positive relationships with neighboring tribes in appeal. UNC Pembroke (Braves), an institution originally created to educate Native Americans and enjoying close ties to the local Lumbee tribe, was approved to continue the use of native-derived imagery without needing an appeal.


Rules violations

Member schools pledge to follow the rules promulgated by the NCAA. Creation of a mechanism to enforce the NCAA's legislation occurred in 1952 after careful consideration by the membership. Allegations of rules violations are referred to the NCAA's enforcement staff, who monitor information about potential violations, investigate and process violations, provide notice of alleged violations, and bring cases before the NCAA's Committees on Infractions. A preliminary investigation is initiated to determine if an official inquiry is warranted and to categorize any resultant violations as secondary or major. If several violations are found, the NCAA may determine that the school as a whole has exhibited a "lack of institutional control." The institution involved is notified promptly and may appear on its own behalf before the NCAA Committee on Infractions. Findings of the Committee on Infractions and the resultant sanctions in major cases are reported to the institution. Sanctions will generally include having the institution placed on "probation" for a period of time, in addition to other penalties. The institution may appeal the findings or sanctions to an appeals committee. After considering written reports and oral presentations by representatives of the Committee on Infractions and the institution, the committee acts on the appeal. Action may include accepting the infractions committee's findings and penalty, altering either, or making its own findings and imposing an appropriate penalty. In cases of particularly egregious misconduct, the NCAA has the power to ban a school from participating in a particular sport, a penalty known as the Death penalty (NCAA), "Death Penalty". Since 1985, any school that commits major violations during the probationary period can be banned from the sport involved for up to two years. However, when the NCAA opts not to issue a death penalty for a repeat violation, it must explain why it did not do so. This penalty has only been imposed three times in its modern form, most notably when Southern Methodist University's (SMU) football team had its 1987 season canceled due to Southern Methodist University football scandal, massive rules violations dating back more than a decade. SMU opted not to field a team in 1988 as well due to the aftershocks from the sanctions, and the program has never recovered. The Mustangs did not post a winning season until 1997, did not appear in their next bowl game until 2009, did not post consecutive winning seasons until 2011 and 2012, and did not return to the national rankings until 2019. The devastating effect the death penalty had on SMU has reportedly made the NCAA skittish about issuing another one. Since the SMU case, there are only three instances where the NCAA has seriously considered imposing it against a Division I school; it imposed it against Division II Morehouse College's men's soccer team in 2003 and Division III MacMurray College's men's tennis team in 2005. In addition to these cases, the most recent Division I school to be considered was Penn State. This was because of the Penn State child sex abuse scandal, Jerry Sandusky Incident that consequently almost landed Penn State on the hook for the death penalty. They received a $60 million fine, in addition to forfeited seasons and other sanctions as well. The NCAA later reversed itself by restoring all forfeited seasons and overturning the remaining sanctions. Additionally, in particularly egregious cases of rules violations, coaches, athletic directors, and athletic support staff can be barred from working for any NCAA member school without permission from the NCAA. This procedure is known as a "show-cause penalty" (not to be confused with an order to show cause in the legal sense). Theoretically, a school can hire someone with a "show cause" on their record during the time the show cause order is in effect only with permission from the NCAA Infractions Committee. The school assumes the risks and stigma of hiring such a person. It may then end up being sanctioned by the NCAA and the Infractions Committee for their choice, possibly losing athletic scholarships, revenue from schools who would not want to compete with that other school, and the ability for their games to be televised, along with restrictions on recruitment and practicing times. As a result, a show-cause order essentially has the effect of blackballing individuals from being hired for the duration of the order. One of the most famous scandals in NCAA history involved Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Cam Newton of the Auburn Tigers in 2011. As a direct effect of not being compensated for his college athletics, Cam Newton's family allegedly sought upwards of $100,000 for him to instead play at Mississippi State. This was revealed days before the conference SEC championship game; however, Cam Newton was later reinstated as there was insufficient evidence against him.


Sponsors

The NCAA has a two-tier sponsorship division. AT&T, Coca-Cola, and Capital One are NCAA Corporate Champions, all others are NCAA Corporate Partners.


Finances

As a governing body for amateur sports the NCAA is classified as a tax-exempt not-for-profit organization. As such, it is not required to pay most taxes on income that for-profit private and public corporations are subject to. The NCAA's business model of prohibiting salaries for collegial athletes has been challenged in court, but a 2015 case was struck down. As of 2014 the NCAA reported that it had over $600 million in unrestricted net assets in its annual report. During 2014 the NCAA also reported almost a billion dollars of revenue, contributing to a "budget surplus" – revenues in excess of disbursements for that year – of over $80 million. Over $700 million of that revenue total was from licensing TV rights to its sporting events. In addition, the NCAA also earns money through investment growth of its endowment fund. Established in 2004 with $45 million, the fund has grown to over $380 million in 2014.


NCAA expenditures

According to the NCAA, it receives most of its annual revenue from two sources: Division I Men's Basketball television and marketing rights, and championships ticket sales. According to the NCAA, "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."NCAA: Where does the money go?
/ref> In 2017 total NCAA revenues were in excess of $1.06 billion.Sports Illustrated: NCAA Reports $1.1 Billion in Revenues
/ref> Division I basketball television and marketing rights generated $821.4 million, and "championships ticket sales" totaled $129.4 million. Other "smaller streams of revenue, such as membership dues" contributed an unspecified amount.


Expenses by category

The NCAA provided a breakdown of how those revenues were in turn spent, organizing pay-outs and expenses into some 14 basic categories. By far the largest went to Sports Scholarship and Sponsorship Funds, funding for sports and student scholarships under the Division I Basketball Performance Fund, expenses incurred in producing Division I Championships (including team food, travel, and lodging), the Student Assistance Fund, and Student Athlete Services. Together these top five recipients accounted for 65% of all NCAA expenditures. General and Administrative expenses for running the NCAA day-to-day operations totaled approximately 4% of monies paid out, and other association-wide expenses, including legal services, communications, and business insurance totaled 8%. The categories: *$210.8M Sport Sponsorship and Scholarship Funds :Distributed to Division I schools to help fund NCAA sports and provide scholarships for college athletes. *$160.5M Division I Basketball Performance Fund :Distributed to Division I conferences and independent schools based on their performance in the men’s basketball tournament over a six-year rolling period. The money is used to fund NCAA sports and provide scholarships for college athletes. *$96.7M Division I Championships :Provides college athletes the opportunity to compete for a championship and includes support for team travel, food and lodging. *$82.2M Student Assistance Fund :Distributed to Division I student-athletes for essential needs that arise during their time in college. *$71.8M Student-Athlete Services :Includes funding for catastrophic injury insurance, drug testing, student-athlete leadership programs, postgraduate scholarships and additional Association-wide championships support. *$50.3M Division I Equal Conference Fund :Distributed equally among Division I basketball-playing conferences that meet athletic and academic standards to play in the men's basketball tournament. The money is used to fund NCAA sports and provide scholarships for college athletes. *$46.7M Academic Enhancement Fund :Distributed to Division I schools to assist with academic programs and services. *$42.3M Division II Allocation :Funds championships, grants and other initiatives for Division II college athletes. *$39.6M Membership Support Services :Covers costs related to NCAA governance committees and the annual NCAA Convention. *$28.2M Division III Allocation :Funds championships, grants and other initiatives for Division III college athletes. *$9.5M Division I Conference Grants :Distributed to Division I conferences for programs that enhance officiating, compliance, minority opportunities and more. *$3.3M Educational Programs :Supports various educational services for members to help prepare student-athletes for life, including the Women Coaches Academy, the Emerging Leaders Seminars and the Pathway Program. *$74.3M Other Association-Wide Expenses :Includes support for Association-wide legal services, communications and business insurance. *$39.7M General and Administrative Expenses :Funds the day-to-day operations of the NCAA national office, including administrative and financial services, information technology and facilities management. According to the NCAA, the 2017 fiscal year was the first in which its revenues topped $1.0 billion. The increase in revenue from 2016 came from hikes in television and marketing fees, plus greater monies generated from championship events and investment income. An
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 ...
critique of the organization's 2017 financials indicated some $560.3 million of the total $956 million paid out went back to its roughly 1,100 member institutions in 24 sports in all three divisions, as well as $200 million for a one-time payment the NCAA made to schools to fund additional programs.NCAA tops $1 billion in revenue
/ref> The Division I basketball tournament alone generated some $761 million, with another $60 million in 2016–17 marketing rights. With increases in rights fees it is estimated the basketball tournament will generate some $869 million for the 2018 championship.


Player compensation proposals

The NCAA has limited the amount of compensation that individual players can receive to scholarships equal to school tuition and related expenses. This rule has generated controversy, in light of the large amounts of revenues that schools earn from sports from TV contracts, ticket sales, and licensing and merchandise. Several commentators have discussed whether the NCAA limit on player compensation violates antitrust laws. There is a consensus among economists that the NCAA's compensation caps for men's basketball and football players benefit the athletes' schools (through
rent-seeking Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth without creating new wealth by manipulating the social or political environment. Rent-seeking activities have negative effects on the rest of society. They result in reduced economic effi ...
) at the expense of the athletes. Economists have subsequently characterized the NCAA as a
cartel A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. Cartels are usually associations in the same sphere of business, and thus an alliance of rivals. Mos ...
and collusive monopsony. Pro-rating payouts to Division I basketball players in proportion to the size of revenues its championship tournament generates relative to the NCAA's total annual revenues would be one possible approach, but will open the door to litigation by students and schools adversely affected by such a formula. According to a national study by the National College Players Association (NCPA) and the Drexel University Sport Management Department, the average FBS “full” athletic scholarship falls short of the full cost of attending each school by an average of $3285 during 2011–12 school year, and leaves the vast majority of full scholarship players living below the federal poverty line. In 2020, the NCAA Board of Governors announced that they supported rule changes that would permit players to receive athletics-related endorsements from third-parties. All divisions were expected to adopt new rules relating to the use of players' names, images, and likenesses before the 2021-2022 academic year begins. On May 6, 2021, Governor Brian Kemp signed Bill 617 into law, giving collegiate athletes the ability to profit off their Name, Image and Likeness. The
University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...
have said they will immediately compensate their student athletes, while Georgia Tech and Georgia State University have not set anything yet. On June 21, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court held unanimously in ''National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston'' that the NCAA's restrictions on education-related payments were unlawfully in violation of Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, Sherman Act's anti-trust and trade regulations. Though this holding did not address restrictions on direct compensation payment to athletes, it also opened the door for the possibly of future court cases concerning this matter. The NCAA announced on July 1, 2021, that as a result of ''O'Bannon'' and numerous state laws giving college players the ability to manage their publicity, the board had agreed to new rules that removed restrictions on college athletes from entering paid endorsements and other sponsorship deals, and from using agents to manage their publicity. Students would still be required to inform the school of all such activities, with the school to make determinations if those activities violate state and local laws. On the first day of effect for the NIL rule change (July 1), athletes such as D'Eriq King (Miami (FL) quarterback), Justyn Ross (Clemson wide receiver), Bo Nix (Auburn quarterback), Antwan Owen (Jackson State defensive end), McKenzie Milton (Florida State quarterback), Malik Cunningham (Louisville Quarterback), Michael Penix Jr. (Indiana quarterback), Spencer Rattler (Oklahoma quarterback), Lexi Sun (Nebraska volleyball), Paige Bueckers (UConn basketball) and twins Hanna & Haley Cavinder (Fresno State basketball), all signed deals and/or unveiled trademarks to profit off of their names, images, and likenesses. As of day one, LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne is projected to be the highest earning college athlete of 2021-2022, out of both men's and women's sports. The new NIL agreement has given student athletes big time deals and opportunities to put theirselves out there and gain profit using their name, image, and likeness. For example, Ga’Quincy McKinstry, quarterback from Alabama signed a deal with Kool-Aid. Not only can they partner up with companies, student athlete's can get paid for other talents; such as, singing. Russell Steinberg in 2021 says, "In addition to his prowess on the football field, where he has a shot at tying the school record for most starts, Marshall’s Will Ulmer is a talented musician who wasn’t able to earn money using his own name — until now. He had been going by “Lucky Bill” to avoid running afoul of NCAA regulations, but now says he is ready to book shows using his real name" (Steinberg 2021). The NIL has allowed Ulmer great opportunities to further pursue his football and musician career. Some companies have partnered up with multiple athletes and created a team of their own. Degree, the deodorant brand, started a team of 14 student athletes to help promote their brand. Degree calls this team Breaking Limits. "The Unilever-owned antiperspirant brand has committed $5 million over the next five years to inspire people to break limits. The first group of athletes that Degree has selected represent a diverse range of backgrounds regarding race, gender, and sport, and their stories will be unveiled on Instagram. These athletes will also have the chance to participate in events to help their local communities" (Steinberg 2021).


Individual awards

The NCAA presents a number of different individual awards, including: * NCAA Award of Valor (not given every year); selection is based on the heroic action occurring during the academic year. * NCAA Gerald R. Ford Award, honoring an individual who has provided significant leadership as an advocate for intercollegiate athletics. * NCAA Inspiration Award (not given every year); selection is based on inspirational action. * NCAA Sportsmanship Award, honoring student athlete, student-athletes who have demonstrated one or more of the ideals of sportsmanship. * NCAA Theodore Roosevelt Award (NCAA), Theodore Roosevelt Award, the highest honor that the NCAA can confer on an individual. * NCAA Woman of the Year Award, honoring a senior student-athlete who has distinguished herself throughout her collegiate career in academics, athletics, service, and leadership. * Elite 90 Award, honoring the student-athlete with the highest cumulative GPA who has reached the competition at the finals site for each of the NCAA's 90 men's and women's championships (in Divisions I, II, and III, plus "National Collegiate" championships open to schools from more than one division). * Silver Anniversary Awards, honoring six distinguished former student-athletes on the 25th anniversary of their college graduation. * The Flying Wedge Award, one of the NCAA's highest honors exemplifying outstanding leadership and service to the NCAA. * Today's Top 10 Award, honoring ten outstanding senior student-athletes. * Walter Byers Scholarship, honoring the top male and female scholar-athletes. In previous years, the NCAA has presented the following awards at its NCAA Honors event: Astronaut Salute, Business Leader Salute, Congressional Medal of Honor Salute, Governor Salute, Olympians Salute, Performing Arts Salute, Presidents Cabinet Salute, Prominent National Media Salute, Special Recognition Awards, U.S. House of Representatives Salute, and U.S. Senate Salute.


Other collegiate athletic organizations

The NCAA is the dominant, but not the only, collegiate athletic organization in the United States. Several other such collegiate athletic organizations exist.


In the United States

* National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) * National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) – two-year colleges (does not operate in California or the Pacific Northwest) * California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) – two-year colleges in California * Northwest Athletic Conference (NWAC) – two-year colleges in Washington, Oregon and Idaho * National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) * United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA) *
Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) was founded in 1971 to govern collegiate women's athletics in the United States and to administer national championships (see AIAW Champions). It evolved out of the Commission on Interc ...
(AIAW) – disbanded in 1982, after NCAA began sponsoring championships in women's sports


Foreign equivalents

* Australia: UniSport Nationals, UniSport Australia and other school affiliations such as Athletic Association of the Great Public Schools of New South Wales (GPS), and Combined Associated Schools (CAS) * Canada: U Sports, and Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) * Indonesia: :id:Liga Mahasiswa, Liga Mahasiswa (LIMA) * Philippines National Collegiate Athletic Association (Philippines) (NCAA), and University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) * United Kingdom: British Universities & Colleges Sport * South Africa: Varsity Sports (South Africa)


International governing body

* International University Sports Federation (FISU) (''Fédération Internationale du Sport Universitaire'')


See also

* College athletics in the United States * College club sports in the United States * College recruiting * College rivalry#United States, College rivalries * Higher education in the United States * Homosexuality in modern sports * List of college athletic programs by U.S. state * List of college sports team nicknames * List of U.S. college mascots * NCAA Native American mascot decision


Notes and references


Notes


References


Further reading

* * *


External links

*
NCAA administrative website
{{Authority control National Collegiate Athletic Association, 1906 establishments in the United States College sports governing bodies in the United States Non-profit organizations based in Indianapolis Sports organizations established in 1906