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

This level was previously called the University Division of the NCAA, in contrast to the lower-level College Division; these terms were replaced with numeric divisions in 1973. The University Division was renamed Division I, while the College Division was split in two; the College Division members that offered scholarships or wanted to compete against those who did became Division II, while those who did not want to offer scholarships became Division III.^[1]

For college football only, D-I schools are further divided into the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), and those institutions that do not have any football program. FBS teams have higher game attendance requirements and more players receiving athletic scholarships than FCS teams. The FBS is named for its series of postseason bowl games, with various polls ranking teams after the conclusion of these games, while the FCS national champion is determined by a multi-team bracket tournament.

For the 2020–21 school year, Division I contained 357 of the NCAA's 1,066 member institutions, with 130 in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), 127 in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), and 100 non-football schools, with six additional schools in the transition from Division II to Division I.^[2][3] There was a moratorium on any additional movement up to D-I until 2012, after which any school that wants to move to D-I must be accepted for membership by a conference and show the NCAA it has the financial ability to support a D-I program.

D-I schools

Schools must field teams in at least seven sports for men and seven for women or six for men and eight for women, with at least two team sports for each gender.^[4][5] Teams that include both men and women are counted as men's sports for the purposes of sponsorship counting.^[4] Division I schools must meet minimum financial aid awards for their athletics program, and there are maximum financial aid awards for each sport that a Division I school cannot exceed.^[6] Several other NCAA sanctioned minimums and differences distinguish Division I from Divisions II and III.^[5] Members must sponsor at least one sport (not necessarily a team sport) for each sex in each playing season (fall, winter, spring), again with coeducational teams counted as men's teams for this purpose.^[7] There are contest and participant minimums for each sport, as well as scheduling criteria. For sports other than football and basketball, Division I schools must play all the minimum number of contests against Division I opponents—anything over the minimum number of games has to be 50 percent Division I. Men's and women's basketball teams have to play all but two games against Division I teams; for men, they must play one-third of all their contests in the home arena.^[8]

In addition to the schools that compete fully as D-I institutions, the NCAA allows D-II and D-III schools to classify one men's and one women's sport (other than football or basketball) as a D-I sport, as long as they sponsored those sports before the latest rules change in 2011.^[9] Also, Division II schools are eligible to compete for Division I national championships in sports that do not have a Division II national championship, and in those sports may also operate under D-I rules and scholarship limits.^[10]

FBS and FCS

For football only, Division I was further subdivided in 1978 into Division I-A (the principal football schools), Division I-AA (the other schools with football teams), and Division I (those schools not sponsoring football).^[11][12] In 2006, Division I-A and I-AA were renamed "Football Bowl Subdivision" (FBS) and "Football Championship Subdivision" (FCS), respectively.

FBS teams are allowed a maximum of 85 players receiving athletically based aid per year, with each player on scholarship receiving a full scholarship. FCS teams have the same 85-player limit as FBS teams, but are allowed to give aid equivalent to only 63 full scholarships. FCS teams are allowed to award partial scholarships, a practice technically allowed but essentially never used at the FBS level. FBS teams also have to meet minimum game attendance requirements (average 15,000 people in actual or paid attendance per home game), while FCS teams do not need to meet minimum attendance requirements.

Another difference is postseason play. Since 1978, FCS teams have played in an NCAA-sanctioned bracket tournament culminating in a title game, the NCAA Division I Football Championship, to determine a national champion. Meanwhile, FBS teams play in bowl games, with various polls ranking teams after the conclusion of these games, yielding a Consensus National Champion annually since 1950. Starting with the 2014 postseason, a four-team College Football Playoff has been contested, replacing a one-game championship format that had started during the 1992 postseason with the Bowl Coalition. Even so, Division I FBS football remains the only NCAA sport in which a yearly champion is not determined by an NCAA-sanctioned championship event.

Finances

Division I athletic programs generated $8.7 billion in revenue in the 2009–2010 academic year. Men's teams provided 55%, women's teams 15%, and 30% was not categorized by sex or sport. Football and men's basketball are usually a university's only profitable sports,^[13] and are called "revenue sports".^[14] From 2008 to 2012, 205 varsity teams were dropped in NCAA Division I – 72 for women and 133 for men, with men's tennis, gymnastics and wrestling hit particularly hard.^[15]

In the Football Bowl Subdivision (130 schools in 2017), between 50 and 60 percent of football and men's basketball programs generated positive revenues (above program expenses).^[16] However, in the Football Championship Subdivision (124 schools in 2017), only four percent of football and five percent of men's basketball programs generated positive revenues.^[17]

In 2012, 2% of athletic budgets were spent on equipment, uniforms and supplies for male athletes at NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision school, with the median spending per-school at $742,000.^[18]

In 2014, the NCAA and the student athletes debated whether student athletes should be paid. In April, the NCAA approved students-athletes getting free unlimited meals and snacks. The NCAA stated "The adoption of the meals legislation finished a conversation that began in the Awards, Benefits, Expenses and Financial Aid Cabinet. Members have worked to find appropriate ways to ensure student-athletes get the nutrition they need without jeopardizing Pell Grants or other federal aid received by the neediest student-athletes. With their vote, members of the council said they believe loosening NCAA rules on what and when food can be provided from athletics departments is the best way to address the issue."^[19]

According to the finance section of the NCAA page, "The NCAA receives most of its annual revenue from two sources: television and marketing rights for the Division I Men’s Basketball Championship and ticket sales for all championships. That money is distributed in more than a dozen ways — almost all of which directly support NCAA schools, conferences and nearly half a million student-athletes. About 60% of the NCAA’s annual revenue — around $600 million — is annually distributed directly to Division I member schools and conferences, while more than $150 million funds Division I championships" (NCAA 2021).

https://www.ncaa.org/finances

Football conferences

Under NCAA regulations, all Division I conferences defined as "multisport conferences" must meet the following criteria:^[20]

• A total of at least seven active Division I members.
• Separate from the above, at least seven active Division 1 members that sponsor both men's and women's basketball.
• Sponsorship of at least 12 NCAA Division I sports.
• Minimum of six men's sports, with the following additional restrictions:
  • Men's basketball is a mandatory sport, and at least seven members must sponsor that sport.
  • Non-football conferences must sponsor at least two men's team sports other than basketball.
  • At least six members must sponsor five men's sports other than basketball, including either football or two other team sports.
• Minimum of six women's sports, with the following additional restrictions:
  • Women's basketball is a mandatory sport, with at least seven members sponsoring that sport.
  • At least two other women's team sports must be sponsored.
  • At least six members must sponsor five women's sports other than basketball, including either football or two other team sports. If a conference officially sponsors an NCAA "emerging sport" for women (as of 2020, acrobatics & tumbling, equestrianism, rugby union, triathlon, or wrestling), that sport will be counted if five members (instead of six) sponsor it.

FBS conferences

FBS conferences must meet a more stringent set of requirements for NCAA recognition than other conferences:^[21]

• A total of at least eight active FBS members.
• To be counted toward this total, a school must participate in conference play in at least six men's and eight women's sports, including men's and women's basketball, football, and at least two other women's team sports.
  • Each school may count one men's and one women's sport not sponsored by its primary conference toward the above limits, as long as that sport competes in another Division I conference. The men's and women's sports so counted need not be the same sport.^[5]

† "Power Five" conferences with guaranteed berths in the New Year's Six, the bowl games associated with the College Football Playoff
‡ "Group of Five" conferences

Notes

FCS conferences

Notes

Sports

Men's team sports

Sports are ranked according to total possible scholarships (number of teams x number of scholarships per team). Scholarship numbers for head-count sports are indicated without a decimal point. Numbers for equivalency sports are indicated with a decimal point, with a trailing zero if needed.

Notes:

The NCAA officially classifies the men's championships in volleyball and water polo as "National Collegiate" championships, that being the designation for championships that are open to members of more than one NCAA division. The ice hockey championship, however, is styled as a "Division I" championship because of the previous existence of a separate Division II championship in that sport.

• Football — D-I football programs are divided into FBS and FCS. The 128 FBS programs can award financial aid to as many as 85 players, with each player able to receive up to a full scholarship. The 124 FCS programs can award up to the equivalent of 63 full scholarships, divided among no more than 85 individuals. Some FCS conferences restrict scholarships to a lower level or prohibit scholarships altogether.
• Soccer — As of the upcoming 2022 season, part of the 2022–23 academic year, the Big 12, Conference USA, and the SEC are the only FBS conferences that do not sponsor men's soccer. Several other D-I conferences also do not sponsor the sport—the Big Sky, MEAC, Mountain West, Ohio Valley, Southland, and SWAC. The Sun Belt Conference is the most recent conference to add men's soccer, reinstating its league for the 2022 season after having dropped the sport after the 2020–21 academic year. Conference USA shut down its league after losing most of its men's soccer membership to the Sun Belt Conference, followed by the American Athletic Conference taking in C-USA's remaining four teams (three of which will fully join The American in 2023) as associate members for 2022.
• Ice Hockey — Almost all D-I ice hockey programs are in the Northeast, the Upper Midwest, or the Colorado Front Range. Only one D-I all-sports conference, the Big Ten, sponsors a men's hockey league. All other conferences operate as hockey-specific leagues. Of the 61 teams expected to compete in D-I hockey in 2022–23, 22 are otherwise classified as either D-II or D-III; a number of schools from D-II play in D-I ice hockey as the NCAA no longer sponsors a championship in D-II and many have traditional/cultural fan bases that support ice hockey, and the D-III schools were "grandfathered" in to D-I through their having sponsored hockey prior to the creation of D-III.
• Lacrosse — The vast majority of D-I lacrosse programs are from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. Only five D-I programs are not in the Eastern Time Zone—Air Force and Denver on the Colorado Front Range, Lindenwood on the Missouri side of the St. Louis metropolitan area, Marquette in Milwaukee, and Utah.
• Volleyball — Of the traditional D-I conferences, only the Big West Conference and Northeast Conference sponsor men's volleyball, with those conferences respectively adding the sport in 2017–18 and 2022–23. Two of the other three major volleyball conferences, defined in that sport as leagues that include full Division I members, are volleyball-specific conferences; the third is the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, a multi-sport conference that does not sponsor football or basketball. In addition to the D-I schools, 31 D-II schools are competing in the National Collegiate division in 2022–23; eight of these are members of Conference Carolinas, the first all-sports league outside Division III to sponsor the sport, and six are members of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
• Water Polo — The number of D-I schools sponsoring men's water polo has declined from 35 in 1987/88 to 22 in 2010/11.^[32] No school outside of California has ever made the finals of the championship, and all champions since 1998 have come from one of the four California-based Pac-12 schools.

Men's individual sports

The following table lists the men's individual D-I sports with at least 1,000 participating athletes. Sports are ranked by number of athletes.

D-I college wrestling has lost almost half of its programs since 1982.^[41]

Women's team sports

Notes

• As in the men's table above, sports are ranked in order of total possible scholarships. Numbers for head-count sports are indicated without a decimal point; those for equivalency sports are indicated with a decimal point, with a trailing zero if needed.
• Women's soccer is the fastest growing NCAA D-I women's team sport over a prolonged period, increasing from 22 teams in 1981–82 to 315 teams in 2010–11.^[43] However, in recent years, the fastest-growing has been beach volleyball, which went from 14 Division I teams in 2011–12 to 55 in 2016–17.
• ^† = In the 2016–17 school year, rugby is classified by the NCAA as an "emerging sport" for women. Beach volleyball, which had previously been an "emerging sport" under the name of "sand volleyball",^[44] became an official NCAA championship sport in 2015–16.^[45]
• * = The number of scholarships are partially linked for (indoor) volleyball and beach volleyball. Schools that field both indoor and beach volleyball teams are allowed 6.0 full scholarship equivalents specifically for beach volleyball as of 2016–17, with the further limitations that (1) no player receiving aid for beach volleyball can be on the indoor volleyball roster and (2) a maximum of 14 individuals can receive aid in beach volleyball. If a school fields only a beach volleyball team, it is allowed 8.0 full scholarship equivalents for that sport, also distributed among no more than 14 individuals.

Women's individual sports

The following table lists the women's individual D-I sports with at least 1,000 participating athletes. Sports are ranked by number of athletes.

Broadcasting and revenue

NCAA Division I schools have broadcasting contracts that showcase their more popular sports — typically football and men's basketball — on network television and in basic cable channels. These contracts can be quite lucrative, particularly for D-I schools from the biggest conferences. For example, the Big Ten conference in 2016 entered into contracts with Fox and ESPN that pay the conference $2.64 billion over six years.

The NCAA also holds certain TV contracts. For example, the NCAA's contract to show the men's basketball championship tournament (widely known as March Madness) is currently under a 14-year deal with CBS and Turner that runs from 2010 to 2024 and pays $11 billion.

For the 2014–15 fiscal year, the conferences that earned the most revenues (and that distributed the most revenues to each of their member schools) were:

1. SEC — $527 million (dispersed $33 million to each of its member schools)
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