In 1948, the three schools joined with Louisville, Morehead State, and Evansville to form the Ohio Valley Conference.

While many collegiate conferences are struggling today with the question of whether their policies and rules should be determined by the athletic departments or by the institutional heads, from the very beginning, the OVC has been run by the presidents of its member schools.

Historically, the OVC was a pioneer in racial desegregation, with Morehead State signing the conference's first Black athlete, Marshall Banks, in 1958.

[7] In a separate statement, Murray State's president indicated that the football team would remain in the OVC in the 2022 season, ensuring that the OVC would retain its automatic bid to the FCS playoffs in that season and giving the league more time to add new football members.

[12] According to a report from Matt Brown of the Extra Points college sports blog, the OVC expected to lose Murray State, and was considering multiple expansion candidates, with Southern Indiana among them.

Other schools named by Brown's sources as possible candidates were FCS programs Arkansas–Pine Bluff and Western Illinois, plus potential Division II upgraders Grand Valley State, Hillsdale, and Lincoln Memorial.

[18] On May 12, 2023, it was announced that Western Illinois University would join the OVC from the Summit League in most non-football sports beginning for the 2023 season.

[19] Western later announced its men's soccer team would also play the 2023 season in its former all-sports home of the Summit League before joining the OVC in 2024.

[21] This website carried live, student-produced coverage of most conference games and some non-conference games in baseball, men's and women's basketball, football, soccer, softball, and volleyball as well as some coaches' shows, special presentations, and archived game-casts available for later viewing.

[22] In the 2018–19 school year, the coverage previously carried on the OVC Digital Network was switched over to ESPN+.

For schools that play only spring sports (such as beach volleyball) in the OVC, the calendar year of arrival precedes the first season of competition.

In the 2014–15 season, women's sports with twelve teams returned to a single league table, while continuing to play a divisional schedule.