Its member schools were located in the states of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, as well as the District of Columbia.
The conference's membership was centered in the South Atlantic region of the United States, which remains in the Southern United States and on the coast of the Atlantic, but is above and contrasted with the Deep South (which had the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association).
There is no evidence in exhaustive searches of newspaper archives that the South Atlantic Intercollegiate Athletic Association ever sanctioned college football.
The list of champions has been derived from compiling football records of schools that belonged to the association that sponsored track and field events.
The terminology "South Atlantic" was used generically by various publications to describe teams in the Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia and North Carolina area.