NCAA Division I
D-I schools include the major collegiate athletic powers, with large budgets, more elaborate facilities and more athletic scholarships than Division II and Division III as well as many smaller schools committed to the highest level of intercollegiate competition.
The NCAA stated "The adoption of the meals legislation finished a conversation that began in the Awards, Benefits, Expenses and Financial Aid Cabinet.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It divides sports that are sponsored into two types for purposes of scholarship limitations: The term "counter" is also key to this concept.
The newest full FBS members are Jacksonville State, James Madison, and Sam Houston, which completed the transition from FCS prior to the 2024 season.
[15] Since the 2016 season, all FBS conferences have been allowed to conduct a championship game that does not count against the limit of 12 regular-season contests.
Under the current rules, most recently changed in advance of the 2022 season, conferences have complete freedom to determine the participants in their championship games.
[74] Before 2016, "exempt" championship games could only be held between the divisional winners of conferences that had at least 12 football teams and split into divisions.
On the other hand, the Pac-12 Conference used names (official or unofficial) that have reflected the number of members from the establishment of its current charter in 1959 until its collapse in 2024.
For example, the Pac-8/10/12 retained its "Pacific" moniker even though its four most recent additions (Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Utah) are located in the inland West, and the original Big East kept its name even after adding schools (either in all sports or for football only) located in areas traditionally considered to be in the Midwest (Cincinnati, DePaul, Marquette, Notre Dame), Upper South (Louisville, Memphis) and Southwest (Houston, SMU).
However, in 2013, the conference added three new schools, two of which (Pittsburgh and, for non-football sports, Indiana-based Notre Dame) were in states without an Atlantic shoreline.
Then, in 2023, the conference announced it would expand in 2024 to the Pacific coast with San Francisco Bay Area rivals California and Stanford, and also add SMU from Dallas–Fort Worth.
[78] The FCS determines its national champion through an NCAA-sanctioned single-elimination bracket tournament, culminating in a title game, the NCAA Division I Football Championship.
From 1997 through 2009, the title game was played in December in Chattanooga, Tennessee, preceded by five seasons in Huntington, West Virginia.
Although it qualifies for an automatic bid, the Ivy League has not played any postseason games at all since becoming a conference, citing academic concerns.
The Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) has its own championship game in mid-December between the champions of its East and West divisions.
That game was scrapped after the 2009 season when its four-year contract ran out; this coincided with the NCAA's announcement that the Northeast Conference would get an automatic bid to the tournament starting in 2010.
Like the SWAC, its members are eligible for at-large bids, and the two conferences have faced off in the Celebration Bowl as an alternative postseason game since the 2015 season.
Division I FCS schools are currently restricted to giving financial assistance amounting to 63 full scholarships.
[69] Finally, FCS schools are limited to 95 individuals participating in preseason practices, as opposed to 105 at FBS schools (the three service academies that play FBS football are exempt from preseason practice player limits by NCAA rule).
The Northeast Conference also sponsored non-scholarship football, but began offering a maximum of 30 full scholarship equivalents in 2006, which grew to 40 in 2011 after a later vote of the league's school presidents and athletic directors and has since increased to 45.
The two remaining football-sponsoring schools, Idaho and New Mexico State, played the 2013 season as FBS independents before becoming football-only members of the Sun Belt Conference in 2014.
[91] After the 2022 season, the ASUN and WAC announced a full football merger for 2023 and beyond under the banner of the United Athletic Conference.
As ice hockey is limited to a much smaller number of almost exclusively Northern schools, there is a completely different conference structure for teams.
The Big Ten Conference began to sponsor ice hockey, and their institutions withdrew their membership from the WCHA and CCHA.
[97] The fallout from these moves led to the demise of the original CCHA, two more teams entering the NCHC, and further membership turnover in the men's side of the WCHA.
In the early 21st century, a controversy arose in the NCAA over whether schools will continue to be allowed to have one showcased program in Division I with the remainder of the athletic program in a lower division, as is the case of, notably, Johns Hopkins University lacrosse as well as Colorado College and University of Alabama in Huntsville in ice hockey.
