More than 360,000 student-athletes compete each year in NCAAsponsored sports. And more than 40,000 of these young men and held for NCAA member institutions.
Understanding the rules and who makes them
A major restructuring of the NCAA in 1973 led to the establishment of three new membership classifications for sports: Division I, Division II, and Division III. Further restructurings over the years have continued to diversify and decentralize the NCAA, adding not only more bureaucracy (with more people, more levels, and more money), but also more autonomy for different divisions.
For example, in 1978, NCAA Division I football divided itself into Division I-A and Division I-AA so that a Division I-AA football championship could be added. In 1981, 12 women’s sports were added to the NCAA championship program, a number that has continued to grow over the years, thanks to Title IX (a law created to ensure that men and women are given equal athletic and academic opportunities). In 1997, the NCAA implemented a change in its governance structure that provided more control by the presidents of the member colleges and universities.
Grappling with the divisions
Each division has its own institutional mission and its own athletics philosophy. Each division also has its own criteria for membership. The more prominent of those criteria pertain to sports sponsorship requirements and the amount of athletics-related financial aid that schools may provide to student-athletes.
Division I: What it means for the athlete
Of the three major divisions, Division I requires its schools to make the largest financial-aid commitment and sponsor the most sports. Division I institutions compete at the major-college level. According to NCAA by-laws, these schools must sponsor at least seven sports for men and seven sports for women (or six for men and eight for women, but not the other way around), with two team sports for each gender and each playing season also represented by each gender. Each sport must meet certain contest and participant minimums,
as well as scheduling criteria.
For sports other than football and basketball, Division I schools must play 100 percent of their minimum number of games against other Division I opponents. If a Division I team plays more than its minimum number of games, at least 50 percent of its remaining games must be against Division I opponents. Men’s and women’s basketball teams have to play all but two games against Division I opponents, and the men must play onethird of their games in their home arena.
Division I schools that have football are classified as Division I-A or I-AA. Division I-A football schools are usually fairly elaborate programs and must meet minimum attendance requirements in one of the following ways:
- They must sponsor at least 16 varsity sports, including football.
- This must include at least six men’s sports and at least eight women’s teams.
- They must schedule at least 60 percent of their football games against other Division I-A schools.
- They must have an average of 15,000 spectators (in actual or paid attendance) per home football game once every two years.
- They must award at least 90 percent of the maximum 85 scholarships (76.5) each year (this can be averaged over a two-year period).
- They must offer at least 200 full scholarships or $4 million on athletic scholarships for all the varsity sports.
Unlike Division I-A schools, Division I-AA teams do not need to meet minimum attendance requirements. But all Division I schools — whether I-A or I-AA — must meet minimum financial-aid awards for their athletics program, and there are maximum financial-aid awards for each sport that a Division I school cannot exceed.
Playing for a Division I school is a big deal. It means playing on high-caliber teams with high-caliber student-athletes. It very often means playing a higher-profile sport, such as football or basketball, with a great deal of media exposure. Division I schools are full scholarship schools, which means that all individual tuition, room
and board, books, and other expenses can be paid for by the school. But, of course, this means that the standards for getting into these schools are also higher than those of non–Division I schools.
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