[1] Two other schools, Cal State Los Angeles and the University of the Pacific, were also considered but they declined at that time to pursue membership.

[2] The newly formed conference had several meetings to set up its governance, which was confirmed in October 1968 on the campus of UC Santa Barbara.

In 1983, the PCAA became the first western conference to introduce women's athletic programs, allowing female student-athletes to compete at the same level as their male counterparts.

From the departures of Idaho and Utah State in 2005 until the arrival of Hawaii in 2012, all members were based in California, reducing the cost and travel time between the universities.

When Hawaii joined, it agreed to help defray a portion of travel costs to that state for the league's California members.

Effective July 1, 1988, the Pacific Coast Athletic Association changed its name to the Big West Conference.

[19] In baseball, Cal State Fullerton has won four College World Series titles with national championships in 1979, 1984, 1995, and 2004.

[20] In addition, Long Beach State and UC Irvine have made multiple appearances in the College World Series.

UC Santa Barbara was the NCAA men's soccer runner-up in 2004, losing the national championship match to Indiana on penalty kicks.

The UNLV Runnin' Rebels men's basketball team won the 1990 NCAA tournament championship after routing Duke 103-73 in the national title game.

UC San Diego had recently passed a bill to move all their sports to Division I and was looking for an invite from the Big West Conference.

The Big West regular season for men's volleyball will be a double round-robin, with each team playing the others once at home and once on the road.

On November 26, 2017, the Big West announced that it would add UC San Diego along with Cal State Bakersfield as its 10th and 11th members starting on July 1, 2020.

The Big West Conference sponsors championship competition in 9 men's and 10 women's NCAA sanctioned sports.

An asterisk denotes the participant in the bowls that invited the Big West champion: Pasadena (1969–70), California (1981–91), Las Vegas (1992–96), and Humanitarian (1997–2000)[24]