The MAC is headquartered in the Public Square district in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, and has two members in the nearby Akron area.

The conference became the largest in Division I-A with the re-admittance of Marshall and NIU in 1997 and addition of the Bulls from the University at Buffalo in 1998.

Marshall and Central Florida left after the 2004–05 academic year, both joining Conference USA in all sports.

In May 2005, the Temple Owls in Philadelphia signed a six-year contract with the MAC as a football-only school and began play in the East Division in 2007.

[6] The Missouri State Bears, Evansville Purple Aces, and Southern Illinois Salukis participate in the MAC for men's swimming and diving.

[7] In 2012, the West Virginia Mountaineers joined the Florida Atlantic Owls and Hartwick College Hawks as men's soccer affiliates.

In June 2017, SIU Edwardsville (SIUE) was invited to become an affiliate member in both men's soccer and wrestling in 2018.

[13][14] The Chicago State Cougars were an affiliate for men's tennis until joining the Western Athletic Conference, which sponsors that sport, in July 2013.

[24] On January 3, 2025, it was reported that Northern Illinois had accepted an invitation from the Mountain West Conference to join as an affiliate member for football in 2026.

[34] Missouri State dropped field hockey,[35] but remained a MAC member in men's swimming & diving.

[38] With the addition of women's lacrosse, the MAC added affiliate members Detroit Mercy, Robert Morris, and Youngstown State in the 2020–21 academic year.

Also in 2021, Missouri left MAC wrestling and returned to its former home of the Big 12 Conference as a wrestling-only member.

[44] In 2022, West Virginia men's soccer was scheduled to leave the MAC for single-sport membership in Conference USA (CUSA).

[45] However, due to the tenuous future of CUSA at that time, West Virginia opted instead to join the Sun Belt Conference (SBC) in 2022 as that league reinstated men's soccer.

[49][50] In 2024, the Missouri Valley Conference announced it would begin sponsoring men's swimming & diving for the 2024–25 season.

[51] However, shortly after dropping men's swimming, the MAC announced it would begin sponsoring a new sport, women's rowing, in 2025–26.

[57] Member schools are also ranked nationally and globally by various groups, including U.S. News & World Report and Times Higher Education.

Notes: On November 30, 2023, the MAC approved a new scheduling format for football effective for the 2024 season, eliminating its East and West Divisions for the first time since 1996 in favor of a pod-based protected rivalry system.

[68] Both tournaments have flourished since moving to Cleveland in 2000, with the men's semi-finals and championship regularly drawing large crowds at Quicken Loans Arena.

[69] In 2007, the MAC also announced a format change for both tournaments, bringing all twelve men's and women's teams to Cleveland.

On May 12, 2020, Steinbrecher announced a suite of major changes to the conference's competitive format across multiple sports in response to fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Specific to men's and women's basketball, the following changes took effect in 2020–21 and will continue through at least 2023–24:[21] The following are the most recent conference champions of each MAC sport.

Total expenses includes coach and staff salaries, scholarships, buildings and grounds, maintenance, utilities and rental fees, recruiting, team travel, equipment and uniforms, conference dues, and insurance.

The following table shows institutional reporting to the U.S. Department of Education as shown on the DOE Equity in Athletics website for the 2021–22 academic year.

[76] While noting the smaller attendance, coaches say that midweek games are good for the conference, and give players a break on Saturdays.

Affiliate stations include WIPB in Muncie, WNDY in Indianapolis, WPTA in Fort Wayne, WHME in South Bend, WTVW in Evansville, WYIN in Merrillville and Comcast in Michigan.

In addition, most NIU football and basketball games can be heard on WSCR-AM 670 "The Score"—Chicago's powerful 50,000-watt, top-rated all-sports station, which reaches 38 states and Canada.

As of 2010, the MAC has five official corporate partners: FirstEnergy, Marathon, PNC Bank, AutoTrader.com and Cleveland Clinic Sports Health.