The Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) is a collegiate

athletic conference An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams, playing competitively against each other in a sports league. In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller divisions, with the best teams competing at successively higher levels. Confe ...

which operates in the

Midwestern The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

and

Southeastern The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

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 primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It participates in Division I of 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 ...

; the conference's

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 ...

programs compete in the

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; formerly known as Division I-AA), the lower of two levels of Division I football competition. The OVC has 10 members, six of which compete in football in the conference.

History

''Primary source:''
The Ohio Valley Conference can trace its roots to 1941 when

Murray State Murray State University (MSU) is a public university in Murray, Kentucky. In addition to the main campus in Calloway County in southwestern Kentucky, Murray State operates extended campuses offering upper level and graduate courses in Paducah, ...

athletic director Roy Stewart,

Eastern Kentucky Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai * Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways * Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 * Eastern Air ...

athletic director Charles "Turkey" Hughes, and

Western Kentucky Western Kentucky is the western portion of the U.S. state of Kentucky. It generally includes part or all of several more widely recognized regions of the state. ;Always included * The Jackson Purchase, the state's westernmost generally recogniz ...

public relations director Kelly Thompson first formulated the idea of establishing a regional athletics conference. The plan was put on hold due to World War II, but it was resurrected after the conclusion of the war. In 1948, the three schools joined with

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

, Morehead State, and

Evansville Evansville is a city in, and the county seat of, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 118,414 at the 2020 census, making it the state's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the largest city in ...

to form the Ohio Valley Conference. While many collegiate conferences are struggling today with the question of whether their policies and rules should be determined by the athletic departments or by the institutional heads, from the very beginning, the OVC has been run by the presidents of its member schools. Historically, the OVC was a pioneer in racial desegregation, with Morehead State signing the conference's first Black athlete, Marshall Banks, in 1958. The rest of the OVC soon followed in Morehead State's wake. From 1986 to 2018, the OVC was unique among NCAA Division I conferences in that it included one

historically Black university Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community. Mo ...

Tennessee State University Tennessee State University (Tennessee State, Tenn State, or TSU) is a public historically black land-grant university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1912, it is the only state-funded historically black university in Tenness ...

, in a conference that otherwise consists of institutions that are not traditionally Black. During this period, every other HBCU in NCAA Division I belonged to either the

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 ...

or Southwestern Athletic Conference. That distinction changed when both

Hampton University Hampton University is a private, historically black, research university in Hampton, Virginia. Founded in 1868 as Hampton Agricultural and Industrial School, it was established by Black and White leaders of the American Missionary Association af ...

and

North Carolina A&T State University North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (also known as North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina A&T, N.C. A&T, or simply A&T) is a public, historically black land-grant research university in Greensboro, North Caro ...

joined the

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 ...

in 2018 and 2021, respectively; both schools have since joined the

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 ...

. The OVC has also been a leader in advancement of sports opportunities for women. The conference began adding championship competitions for women in 1977 several years after the

AIAW 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 ...

began sponsoring national championships for women, but seven years before the NCAA was ready to move into the field. Since 2009, the OVC has been led by Commissioner Beth DeBauche, one of only six female commissioners for the thirty-two Division I conferences. Athletic rivalries, really close colleges and especially when competitors are in relatively close proximity, can generate problems with fan behavior, and the conference leadership struggled with controlling the issue for many years. When the national debate on the problem reached its apex in the mid-1990s, the OVC unveiled the national first of its kind "Sportsmanship Statement" in 1995, stating the conference's policy on, "... principles of fair play, ethical conduct and respect for one's opponent." Since then, the OVC has also introduced individual, team (for each sport), and institutional sportsmanship awards. Founded by six schools, the expansions of 2007 and 2011 brought the Ohio Valley Conference membership to twelve schools, the most in its history. The OVC dropped to 10 members after the 2020–21 school year, when founding member Eastern Kentucky and Jacksonville State left for the ASUN Conference. At that time, the OVC was searching for teams to replace both. The OVC lost three more members after the 2021–22 school year. Football-sponsoring Austin Peay left for the ASUN Conference, which ultimately launched its own football league in 2022. Non-football Belmont left for the

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 ...

. Another football school, founding member Murray State, left for the MVC. When announcing its move to the MVC, Murray State announced that it was seeking membership in the football-only

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 Subdivi ...

, and also announced that it would continue to house its rifle team in the OVC. In a separate statement, Murray State's president indicated that the

football team A football team is a group of players selected to play together in the various team sports known as football. Such teams could be selected to play in a match against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an All-st ...

would remain in the OVC in the 2022 season, ensuring that the OVC would retain its automatic bid to the FCS playoffs in that season and giving the league more time to add new football members. Murray State would eventually be accepted by the MVFC effective in 2023. Also in July 2022, the OVC added two non-football members in the

University of Arkansas at Little Rock The University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UA Little Rock) is a public research university in Little Rock, Arkansas. Established as Little Rock Junior College by the Little Rock School District in 1927, the institution became a private four-year ...

, athletically known as Little Rock, and the

University of Southern Indiana The University of Southern Indiana (USI) is a public university just outside of Evansville, Indiana. Founded in 1965, USI enrolls 9,750 dual credit, undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students in more than 130 areas of study. USI offers program ...

, which started a transition from

NCAA Division II NCAA Division II (D-II) is an intermediate-level division of competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It offers an alternative to both the larger and better-funded Division I and to the scholarship-free environmen ...

, plus a new football-sponsoring member in

Lindenwood University Lindenwood University is a private university in St. Charles, Missouri. Founded in 1827 by George Champlin Sibley and Mary Easton Sibley as The Lindenwood School for Girls, it is the second-oldest higher-education institution west of the Mis ...

, also transitioning from D-II. According to a report from Matt Brown of the ''Extra Points'' college sports blog, the OVC expected to lose Murray State, and was considering multiple expansion candidates, with Southern Indiana among them. Other schools named by Brown's sources as possible candidates were FCS programs Arkansas–Pine Bluff and

Western Illinois Forgottonia (), also spelled Forgotonia, is the name given to a 16-County (United States), county region in Western Illinois in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This geographic region forms the distinctive western bulge of Illinois (area west of ...

, plus potential Division II upgraders

Grand Valley State Grand Valley State University (GVSU, GV, or Grand Valley) is a public university in Allendale Charter Township, Michigan, Allendale, Michigan. It was established in 1960 as Grand Valley State College. Its main campus is situated on approximately ...

, Hillsdale, and

Lincoln Memorial The Lincoln Memorial is a U.S. national memorial built to honor the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is on the western end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., across from the Washington Monument, and is in the ...

. On February 22, 2022, the conference announced its intent to combine its football membership with the

beginning in 2023. Full details of the alliance, specifically whether it will be operated by either the Big South or OVC, or become a completely separate entity, have yet to be announced. Shortly after the 2022 membership changes took effect, the OVC and the

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 ...

jointly announced that they would merge their men's tennis leagues under the Horizon banner, effective immediately. All five OVC members that sponsored men's tennis became Horizon affiliates in that sport.

OVC Digital Network

In August 2012, the OVC announced that it had launched the OVC Digital Network as a replacement for and improvement over the conference's former efforts to provide

streaming video Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...

coverage of many athletic events that had been in place since 2006. This website carried live, student-produced coverage of most conference games and some non-conference games in baseball, men's and women's basketball, football, soccer, softball, and volleyball as well as some coaches' shows, special presentations, and archived game-casts available for later viewing. In its first two years, the network provided well over 600,000 viewings of streamed live video of more than 1400 events. In the 2018–19 school year the coverage previously carried on the OVC Digital Network was switched over to

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 ...

Member schools

Full members

;Notes

Affiliate members

Years listed in this table are calendar years. For schools that play only spring sports (such as beach volleyball) in the OVC, the calendar year of arrival precedes the first season of competition. ;Notes:

Former members

;Notes:

Former affiliate members

;Notes:

Membership timeline

DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:1000 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:1948 till:2028 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:20 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 #> to display a count on left side of graph, use "left:20" to suppress the count, use "left:20"<# Colors = id:current value:tan2 id:former value:tan1 id:line value:black id:bg value:white id:Full value:rgb(0.742,0.727,0.852) # all sports id:FullxF value:rgb(0.551,0.824,0.777) # all sports except for football id:AssocF value:rgb(0.98,0.5,0.445) # football only id:AssocOS value:rgb(0.5,0.691,0.824) # some sports, but not all (consider identifying in legend or a footnote) id:OtherC1 value:rgb(0.996,0.996,0.699) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference id:OtherC2 value:rgb(0.988,0.703,0.383) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference where OtherC1 has already been used, to distinguish the two PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s bar:1 color:Full from:1948 till:1949 text:

(1948–1949) bar:2 color:Full from:1948 till:1952 text:

(1948–1952) bar:3 color:Full from:1948 till:1982 text:

(1948–1982) bar:3 color:AssocF from:1999 till:2001 text:('99–'01 in football) bar:4 color:Full from:1948 till:1996 text: Morehead State (1948–present) bar:4 color:FullxF from:1996 till:end bar:5 color:Full from:1948 till:2021 text:

(1948–2021) bar:6 color:Full from:1948 till:2022 text:

(1948–2022) bar:6 color:AssocF from:2022 till:2023 text:('22–'23 in football) bar:6 color:AssocOS from:2023 till:end text: bar:7 color:Full from:1949 till:1952 text:

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

(1949–1952) bar:8 color:Full from:1949 till:end text:

Tennessee Tech Tennessee Technological University, commonly referred to as Tennessee Tech, is a public research university in Cookeville, Tennessee, United States. It was formerly known as Tennessee Polytechnic Institute, and before that as University of Dixie ...

(1949–present) bar:9 color:Full from:1952 till:1999 text:

Middle Tennessee State Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU or MT) is a public university in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Founded in 1911 as a normal school, the university consists of eight undergraduate colleges as well as a college of graduate studies, together of ...

(1952–2000) bar:9 color:FullxF from:1999 till:2000 bar:10 color:Full from:1957 till:1978 text: East Tennessee State (1957–1978) bar:11 color:Full from:1962 till:1997 text: Austin Peay (1962–2022) bar:11 color:FullxF from:1997 till:2007 bar:11 color:Full from:2007 till:2022 bar:12 color:Full from:1980 till:1987 text:

Akron Akron () is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Summit County. It is located on the western edge of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, about south of downtown Cleveland. As of the 2020 Census, the city prop ...

(1980–1987) bar:13 color:Full from:1981 till:1988 text:

Youngstown State Youngstown State University (YSU or Youngstown State) is a public university in Youngstown, Ohio. It was founded in 1908 and is the easternmost member of the University System of Ohio. The university is composed of six undergraduate colleges an ...

(1981–1988) bar:14 color:FullxF from:1986 till:1988 text:

Tennessee State Tennessee State University (Tennessee State, Tenn State, or TSU) is a public historically black land-grant university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1912, it is the only state-funded historically black university in Tennes ...

(1986–present) bar:14 color:Full from:1988 till:end bar:15 color:Full from:1991 till:end text: Southeast Missouri State (1991–present) bar:16 color:Full from:1992 till:end text: Tennessee-Martin (1992–present) bar:17 color:Full from:1996 till:end text: Eastern Illinois (1996–present) bar:18 color:Full from:2003 till:2008 text: Samford (2003–2008) bar:19 color:Full from:2003 till:2021 text: Jacksonville State (2003–2021) bar:20 color:FullxF from:2008 till:end text:

SIUE Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) is a public university in Edwardsville, Illinois. SIUE was established in 1957 as an extension of Southern Illinois University Carbondale.Butler 1976, p. 18 It is the younger of the two major inst ...

(2008–present) bar:21 color:FullxF from:2012 till:2022 text: Belmont (2012–2022) bar:22 color:AssocOS from:2012 till:2015 text: Columbus State (2012–2015) bar:23 shift:(-50) color:AssocOS from:2020 till:end text:

Chattanooga Chattanooga ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. Located along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia, it also extends into Marion County on its western end. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, ...

(2020–present) bar:24 color:Full from:2022 till:end text:

Lindenwood Lindenwood may refer to a place in the United States: *Lindenwood, Illinois *Lindenwood, Queens, New York *Lindenwood Cemetery, Fort Wayne, Indiana In education: * Lindenwood University Lindenwood University is a private university in St. Ch ...

(2022–present) bar:25 color:FullxF from:2022 till:end text:

Little Rock ( The "Little Rock") , government_type = Council-manager , leader_title = Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_party = D , leader_title2 = Council , leader_name2 ...

(2022–present) bar:26 color:FullxF from:2022 till:end text:

Southern Indiana Southern Indiana is a region consisting of the southern third of the state of Indiana. The region's history and geography has led to a blend of Northern and Southern culture distinct from the remainder of Indiana. It is often considered to be p ...

(2022–present) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:4 start:1950 TextData = fontsize:L textcolor:black pos:(0,30) tabs:(400-center) text:^"Ohio Valley Conference membership history" # > If the chart uses more than one bar color, add a legend by selecting the appropriate fields from the following six options (use only the colors that are used in the graphic.) Leave a blank line after the end of the timeline, then add a line with the selected values from the list, separated by a space. <#

Comments

* Morehead State's football team competes in the

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 ...

, a Division I FCS football-only conference whose members choose not to offer athletic scholarships for football. * Austin Peay's football team left the OVC after the 1996 season to compete as an NCAA D-I FCS Independent. After four seasons as an Independent, the team joined the Pioneer Football League in 2001, and remained there through the 2005 season. Austin Peay then returned to scholarship football, spending the 2006 season as an Independent before re-entering OVC football competition in 2007.

Conference divisions

Starting with the 2012–13 school year, the twelve member schools were split into two divisions for those sports where all schools competed. In the 2014–15 season, women's sports with twelve teams returned to a single league table, while continuing to play a divisional schedule. Men's basketball moved to an 18-game schedule in 2017–18, and they continued to play home-and-home versus the former divisional rivals, and they play home-and-home versus two teams from the other division, with those opponents on a rotation that sets up different pairs from year-to-year. The OVC returned to a single-table format after Eastern Kentucky and Jacksonville State left in 2021.

Sports offered

The Ohio Valley Conference currently offers championship competition in 18 NCAA sanctioned sports, with seven for men, 10 for women, and rifle for men's, women's, and coed teams.

Men's sponsored sports by school

;Notes ;Men's varsity sports not sponsored by the Ohio Valley Conference which are played by OVC schools ;Notes

Women's sponsored sports by school

;Women's varsity sports not sponsored by the Ohio Valley Conference which are played by OVC schools

Conference champions

Football conference champions

''This is a list of the champions since 2010. For the complete history, see

List of Ohio Valley Conference football champions This is a list of yearly regular season champions in college football of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) FCS Ohio Valley Conference. Fifteen different teams have won a championship in the seven decade history of the OVC; ever ...

.'' $ – Tennessee Tech won the tie-breaker and received the automatic bid to the FCS playoffs. $$ – Austin Peay won the tie-breaker and received the automatic bid to the FCS Playoffs

Basketball

''This is list of the champions since 2010. For the complete men's history, see List of Ohio Valley Conference men's basketball champions.''

Baseball

''This is list of the champions since 2010.'' * # = 2009 Eastern Illinois lost 1 conference and 4 non-conference games by forfeit for using an ineligible player.

Softball

''This is list of the champions since 2010.''

Women's soccer

''This is a list of Champions since 2010.''

Facilities

Departing members in red; future members in gray.

References

External links

* {{NCAA Division I FCS conference navbox Sports in the Midwestern United States Sports in the Southern United States Sports organizations established in 1948 Articles which contain graphical timelines 1948 establishments in the United States