The equivalent body for organized sports at colleges in Canada is the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA).

The original Canadian Intercollegiate Athletic Union (CIAU) was founded in 1906 and existed until 1955, composed only of universities from Ontario and Quebec.

A growth spurt between 1944–55 saw the CIAU Central grow into a large group of nineteen (19) member universities each of which had diverse enrollment, philosophy, and practices both academically and athletically.

[1] With financial assistance from the federal government, universities committed themselves to excellence in their sports programs, increased their schedules, and assigned coaches to year round programs to assist the federal government in identifying talent, national training centers, provision of facilities, sport research, and testing, all with an eye on developing international competitors.

In June 2001, the membership of the CIAU voted to change the name and logo of the organization to Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS).

The name was chosen in part to better represent Canada as a bilingual nation with a united name as opposed to separate acronyms.

[3] Increasingly, U Sports schools are offering booster-support programs, where alumni, parents and/or corporations can donate money to a targeted fund especially designed to off-set a student-athlete's tuition and living costs.