As of 2024[update], ten full member institutions are located in the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.

[9][10] Women's sports were added 37 years ago in 1988, moving from the women's-only Mountain West Athletic Conference (1982–88).

The Big Sky sponsors championships in sixteen sports, including men's and women's cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field, basketball, and tennis.

† Northern Arizona is the only Big Sky program to win D1 team national titles outside of the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS).

As of the 2022–23 school year, the Big Sky sponsors championships in seven men's and nine women's NCAA-sanctioned sports.

The Mustangs and Aggies were welcomed by the BSC in September 2010 in response to both nationwide conference realignment[14] and an expansion of the FCS playoff bracket at the time, according to then-commissioner Doug Fullerton.

When Boise State and Northern Arizona arrived for the 1971 season, competition was split into two divisions of four teams each, with the winners in a best-of-three championship series.

It retained football, basketball, cross-country, track, and wrestling, and dropped conference competition in baseball, golf, tennis, swimming, and skiing.

[9][10] Of the eleven Big Sky baseball titles, four each went to Idaho[22] and Gonzaga, and three to Weber State.

[24] Southern division champion Idaho State chose to end its baseball program weeks following the conference's announcement,[25] and Gonzaga, Idaho, and Boise State joined the new Northern Pacific Conference (NorPac) for baseball in 1975.

The best finish by a Big Sky team came in 1977, when the Idaho State Bengals of Jim Killingsworth advanced to the Elite Eight, with a one-point upset of UCLA in the Sweet Sixteen in Provo, Utah.

After a first round bye, they beat Lute Olson's Iowa Hawkeyes in nearby Pullman in overtime, but lost to second-seeded (and fourth-ranked) Oregon State in the regional semifinals (Sweet Sixteen), also played in Provo.

The Griz fell to heavily-favored UCLA by just three points, who went on to win another title in John Wooden's final year as head coach.

Weber State won in 1995 and 1999, coached by Ron Abegglen, and Montana in 2006, led by alumnus Larry Krystkowiak.