The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and 1 in Canada. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges and helps over 500,000 college student athletes who compete annually in college sports. The headquarters is located in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Until the 1956–57 academic year, the NCAA was a single division for all schools. That year, the NCAA split into the University Division and the College Division. In August 1973, the current three-division system of Division I, Division II, and Division III was adopted by the NCAA membership in a special convention. Under NCAA rules, Division I and Division II schools can offer athletic scholarships to students. Division III schools may not offer any athletic scholarships. Generally, larger schools compete in Division I and smaller schools in II and III. Division I football was further divided into I-A and I-AA in 1978, while Division I programs that did not have football teams were known as I-AAA. In 2006, Divisions I-A and I-AA were, respectively, renamed the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). In its 2022–23 fiscal year, the NCAA generated $1.28 billion in revenue, $945 million (74%) of which came from airing rights to the Division I men's basketball tournament.
Controversially, the NCAA substantially restricts the kinds of benefits and compensation (including paid salary) that collegiate athletes could receive from their schools. The consensus among economists is these caps for men's basketball and football players benefit the athletes' schools (through rent-seeking) at the expense of the athletes. Economists have subsequently characterized the NCAA as a cartel. In 2021, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously ruled that some of these NCAA restrictions on student athletes are in violation of US antitrust law. The NCAA settled a lawsuit in May 2024 allowing member institutions to pay Division I athletes who have played since 2016.
Intercollegiate sports began in the United States in 1852 when crews from Harvard and Yale universities met in a challenge race in the sport of rowing. As rowing remained the preeminent sport in the country into the late-1800s, many of the initial debates about collegiate athletic eligibility and purpose were settled through organizations like the Rowing Association of American Colleges and the Intercollegiate Rowing Association. As other sports emerged, notably football and basketball, many of these same concepts and standards were adopted. Football, in particular, began to emerge as a marquee sport, though its rules were in constant flux and often had to be adapted for each contest.
The NCAA dates its formation to two White House conferences convened by President Theodore Roosevelt in the early 20th century in response to repeated injuries and deaths in college football which had "prompted many college and universities to discontinue the sport." Following those White House meetings and the reforms which had resulted, Chancellor Henry MacCracken of New York University organized a meeting of 13 colleges and universities to initiate changes in football playing rules; at a follow-on meeting on December 28, 1905, at the Murray Hill Hotel in New York City, 62 higher-education institutions became charter members of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAAUS). The IAAUS was officially established on March 31, 1906, and took its present name, the NCAA, in 1910.
For several years, the NCAA was a discussion group and rules-making body, but in 1921, the first NCAA national championship was conducted: the National Collegiate Track and Field Championships. Gradually, more rules committees were formed and more championships were created, including a basketball championship in 1939.
A series of crises brought the NCAA to a crossroads after World War II. The "Sanity Code" – adopted to establish guidelines for recruiting and financial aid – failed to curb abuses, and the Association needed to find more effective ways to curtail its membership. Postseason football games were multiplying with little control, and member schools were increasingly concerned about how the new medium of television would affect football attendance.
The NCAA engaged in a bitter power struggle with the Amateur Athletic Union. The complexity of those problems and the growth in membership and championships demonstrated the need for full-time professional leadership.
Walter Byers, previously an assistant sports information director, was named executive director in 1951. The Harvard Crimson described Byers as "power-mad", The New York Times said that Byers was "secretive, despotic, stubborn and ruthless", The Washington Post described him as a dictator, and others described him as a "petty tyrant".
Byers wasted no time placing his stamp on the Association, and a national headquarters was established in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1952. A program to control live television of football games was approved, the annual Convention delegated enforcement powers to the Association's Council, and legislation was adopted governing postseason bowl games.
As college athletics grew, the scope of the nation's athletics programs diverged, forcing the NCAA to create a structure that recognized varying levels of emphasis. In 1973, the association's membership was divided into three legislative and competitive divisions – I, II, and III. Five years later in 1978, Division I members voted to create subdivisions I-A and I-AA (renamed the Football Bowl Subdivision and the Football Championship Subdivision in 2006) in football.
Until the 1980s, the association did not govern women's athletics. Instead, the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), with nearly 1,000 member schools, governed women's collegiate sports in the United States. The AIAW was in a vulnerable position that precipitated conflicts with the NCAA in the early-1980s. Following a one-year overlap in which both organizations staged women's championships, the AIAW discontinued operation, and most member schools continued their women's athletics programs under the governance of the NCAA. By 1982 all divisions of the NCAA offered national championship events for women's athletics. A year later in 1983, the 75th Convention approved an expansion to plan women's athletic program services and pushed for a women's championship program.
Proposals at every NCAA Convention are voted on by the institutional members of the NCAA. Each institutional member has one representative: the president/CEO or a representative designated by him/her.
Attendance by the actual president/CEO was low; less than 30%. Southern Methodist University President A. Kenneth Pye commented, "In too many cases, presidents have not only delegated responsibility, they have abdicated it." Many presidents designated their athletic director as the institutional representative, something Pye compared to "entrusting a chicken coop to the supervision of a wolf and a fox."
Beginning around 1980, a group of college presidents thought there was a crisis of integrity in collegiate sports and discussed ways to
transform athletics to match the academic model. The American Council on Education (ACE) proposed a presidential board empowered to veto NCAA membership actions, while the NCAA Council, whose membership was mostly athletic officials, suggested a presidential commission with advisory powers. The council's proposal may have been intended to block the presidential effort to gain control of the NCAA. The two proposals were voted on by the membership at the NCAA Convention in January 1984. The ACE proposal was defeated by a vote of 313 to 328. The Council proposal passed on a voice vote without ballots.
Publicly, the President's Commission (PC) was responsible for establishing an agenda for the NCAA, but the actual language of the proposal stated that their role was to be a presidential forum and to provide the NCAA with the president's position on major policy issues. The PC could study issues and urge action, call special meetings and sponsor legislation. Their one real power was to veto the selection of Executive Director. The composition of the commission was 22 CEOs from Division I and 11 CEOs each from Divisions II and III.