The Big South Conference began sponsoring football in 2002, with Charleston Southern, Elon (at the time) and Liberty (Gardner–Webb University also joined as a football-only member) fielding teams; Coastal Carolina and Virginia Military Institute (VMI) joined the conference as football-only members in 2003.
[5] On June 30, 2016, the day before the school joined the Sun Belt, Coastal Carolina won the 2016 College World Series in baseball.
This was the first time in conference history that a team won an NCAA championship in any sport.
[15] A more recent change to its core membership was the July 2021 arrival of North Carolina A&T State University from the MEAC as a full member, including football.
[17] North Carolina A&T joined on the originally planned schedule, but Robert Morris became a Big South football member in November 2020.
All three are full members of the Southern Conference (SoCon), which disbanded its women's lacrosse league after the 2021 season.
[19] On January 25, 2022, the Colonial Athletic Association (now the Coastal Athletic Association) announced that Hampton University would join that conference, as well as CAA Football, its technically separate football league, on July 1, 2022.
[20] On February 22, that conference announced that North Carolina A&T State University would be leaving the Big South, joining the all-sports CAA on July 1.
Women's varsity sports not sponsored by the Big South Conference which are played by Big South schools: In addition to the above, Campbell, Gardner–Webb, and Presbyterian consider their female cheerleaders to be varsity athletes, with Campbell also considering its male cheerleaders as such.
† – Former member of the Big South In addition to basketball games being broadcast on regional and national television, member schools of the Big South Conference are required to provide a live stream of all home games for all sports when playing teams both within and outside the conference.
The football games broadcast on the web are branded as part of a Big South Network.