NCAA Division I

Division I is the highest level of college sports in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States. Its schools generally have the biggest budgets, the best facilities, and offer more their students more athletic scholarships than Divisions II and III.

National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)

Below is a list of sports conferences belonging to Division I:

Football Bowl Subdivision

• American Athletic Conference
• Atlantic Coast Conference
• Big Ten Conference
• Big 12 Conference
• Conference USA
• Mid-American Conference
• Mountain West Conference
• Pacific-12 Conference
• Southeastern Conference
• Sun Belt Conference

Football Championship Subdivision

• Big Sky Conference
• Big South Conference
• Colonial Athletic Association
• Ivy League
• Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
• Northeast Conference
• Ohio Valley Conference
• Patriot League
• Southern Conference
• Southland Conference
• Southwestern Athletic Conference

These conferences only play football:

• Missouri Valley Football Conference
• Pioneer Football League

Other conferences

These conferences do not play football, but do play basketball:

• America East Conference
• Atlantic Sun Conference
• Atlantic 10 Conference
• Big East Conference
• Big West Conference
• Horizon League
• Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference
• Missouri Valley Conference
• The Summit League
• West Coast Conference
• Western Athletic Conference

These conferences play more than one sport, but do not play either football or basketball:

• Coastal Collegiate Sports Association (men's and women's swimming and diving, plus women's beach volleyball)
• Mountain Pacific Sports Federation

These conferences only play ice hockey:

• Atlantic Hockey (men only)
• College Hockey America (women only)
• ECAC Hockey
• Hockey East
• National Collegiate Hockey Conference (men only)
• New England Women's Hockey Alliance
• Western Collegiate Hockey Association
  • The men's side of the WCHA is now likely to fold at the end of the 2020–21 season. Seven of the 10 men's members announced they would leave the league at that time. These schools have since announced that they will start play in a revived Central Collegiate Hockey Association in 2021.

The only Division I all-sports conference that plays either men's or women's ice hockey is the Big Ten. It started a men's hockey league in 2013–14.

These conferences only play water polo. All three run men's and women's leagues.

• Collegiate Water Polo Association
• Golden Coast Conference
• Western Water Polo Association

One conference competes only in wrestling:

• Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association

These conferences play only one sport:

• Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges
• Pacific Coast Swim Conference

In some sports, the NCAA does not split schools into divisions because only a small number of schools play a given sport. Technically, conferences in these sports are not Division I. However, most of the schools in these conferences are in Division I in other sports.

These conferences only play men's volleyball (note that women's volleyball is split into divisions):

• Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association
• Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association

These conferences only compete in skiing:

• Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association
• Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association

These conferences only compete in gymnastics:

• Eastern Intercollegiate Gymnastics League (men only)
• Midwest Independent Conference (women only)
• Mountain Rim Gymnastics Conference (women only)

These conferences only compete in rifle shooting:

• Great America Rifle Conference
• Mid-Atlantic Rifle Conference
• Patriot Rifle Conference

This conference only does fencing:

• Midwest Fencing Conference

This conference only does bowling (the ten-pin variety, which is an NCAA sport for women only):

• Southland Bowling League