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.
History
Formation and early years
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.
1970s–1980s
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.
President's Commission
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.
The true intent of the PC was to shift control of intercollegiate athletics back to CEOs. Graduation rates were an important metric to chancellors and presidents and became a focus of the PC.
In June 1985 a special convention was held to review legislative proposals including academic integrity, academic-reporting requirements, differences in "major" and "secondary" violations including the "death penalty" and requiring an annual financial audit of athletic departments. All proposals passed overwhelmingly. Many presidents who did not attend sent a vice-president rather than their athletic director. University of Florida President Marshall Criser stated that "the ultimate responsibility must be assumed by the CEOs because we don't have enough NCAA cops to solve all of the problems."
The regular NCAA meeting in January 1986 presented proposals in regard to college eligibility, drug testing, and basketball competition limits. All passed but matters regarding acceptable academic progress, special-admissions and booster club activities were ignored. Many presidents did not attend and it appeared that athletic directors controlled the meeting. A survey of 138 Division I presidents indicated that athletic directors did control collegiate sports. Despite a moratorium on extending the season of any sport in 1985, the extension of basketball and hockey seasons were approved. Indiana University president John W. Ryan, outgoing chairman of the PC commented, "If the moratorium is vacated, it's being vacated not by the commission, but by this convention." Following the vote, a delegate was quoted, "A lot of Athletic Directors figure they've successfully waited out the presidents...unless the presidents fight back, NCAA reform is flat-ass dead in the water."
The PC proposed just one legislative issue at the January 1987 meeting: applying the minimum academic standards in Division I to Division II. It narrowly passed.
The PC attempted to again push the reform of college athletics by calling another special convention which was held in June 1987 to discuss cost-cutting measures and to address the overemphasis on athletics in colleges and universities. John Slaughter, Chancellor of the University of Maryland served as chairman. He stated, "This represents the second major thrust since our commission was formed three years ago. The first involved academics and infractions. This will be equally momentous and more sweeping. We want to achieve a balance between athletics and other institutional programs."
Cost-cutting measures proposed included reductions in athletic financial aid, coaching staff sizes, and length of practice/playing seasons. A resolution was also floated that opposed coaches receiving outside financial compensation if outside activities interfere with regular duties. All the PC proposals were defeated, and two basketball scholarships were restored that were eliminated at the meeting in January. It was apparent that there was an open conflict between college presidents.
The president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Ernest L. Boyer, summarized the situation: "There are presidents whose institutions are so deeply involved in athletics that their own institutional and personal futures hang in the balance. They feel they must resist such change because athletics are bigger than they are."
The PC sponsored no legislation at the January 1988 annual meeting, and there was not a vote of confidence.
However, a year later at the annual meeting, financial aid restrictions were proposed for specific Division I and II sports. Following extensive discussions, the measure was withdrawn and a Special Committee on Cost Reductions was formed to study the issue. Once again, a proposal from the PC was circumvented.
The President's Commission met in October 1989 to prepare for the 1990 NCAA annual meeting. Proposals were developed to shorten spring football and the basketball season; grant financial aid based on need to academically deficient athletes; and reporting of graduation rates. Chancellor Martin Massengale of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln was then chairman of the PC insisted that graduation rate data was needed to preclude "further need for federal legislation" that was being proposed by Representative Tom McMillen and Senator Bill Bradley (both former NCAA and NBA players). The proposals demonstrated that the PC was intent on regaining control of college athletics and the opposition was immediate. Commissioner of the Big Ten Conference Jim Delany responded, "They tend to want quick answers and you don't solve the complexities of intercollegiate athletics. Yes, presidents are involved, but the truth is, they really don't have time to be involved." Bo Schembechler, then University of Michigan head football coach and athletic director, was blunt, saying "Unfortunately, you're dealing with people who don't understand. We're trying to straddle the fence here because you still want me to put 100,000 (fans) in the stadium and the reason you want me to do it is because you're not going to help me financially at all." In 1990, he resigned his college jobs to become president of Major League Baseball's Detroit Tigers. Upon his departure, he predicted, "In the next five years, school presidents will completely confuse intercollegiate athletics directors, then they'll dump it back to athletics directors and say, 'You straighten this out.' About 2000, it may be back on track."
Presidential turnout for the January 1990 meeting was good and many who did not attend sent a delegate to vote for the PC. The graduation reporting proposal passed overwhelmingly, and the proposal for need-based non-athletic aid passed easily. The final proposal to shorten basketball and spring football generated fierce debate. There was a motion to defer the proposal for study that failed 383–363, but the many PC members relaxed, confident of victory. PC Chairman Massengale left the meeting for other business, but during lunch, council members began lobbying and twisting arms to change votes. When the session resumed, council members began criticizing the PC and quickly executed a parliamentary maneuver to refer the proposal to the NCAA Council. Many PC members were still at lunch when a roll call vote passed 170–150. University of Texas women's athletic director Donna Lopiano complained, "The President's Commission needs to do what it does best, and that is to macro-manage. Leave the micro-management to the various expert groups. We
will bring back solutions."
Numerous presidents were shocked, upset and angry, but the remaining PC members began their own lobbying and arm-twisting. An hour later, there was a sense that representatives who had voted against the direction of their respective presidents had reconsidered, and a motion was made to reconsider by Lattie F. Coor, president of Arizona State University. West Point Lieutenant General Dave Richard Palmer urged the vote, stating the NCAA needed "to make a mark on the wall...delay is the deadliest form of denial."
Following discussion, compromise and voting on minor issues, the reconsideration motion passed, and the third proposal was adopted with a vote of 165–156.
The President's Commission held hearings beginning on May 9, 1991, to develop stronger academic standards.
The President's Commission lasted for 13 years and pushed through initiatives such as restricting the size of coaching staffs; limiting how much time student-athletes can spend on their sports; and setting more demanding academic standards for Divisions I and II.
By the 1980s, televised college football had become a larger source of income for the NCAA. In September 1981, the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma and the University of Georgia Athletic Association filed suit against the NCAA in district court in Oklahoma. The plaintiffs stated that the NCAA's football television plan constituted price fixing, output restraints, boycott, and monopolizing, all of which were illegal under the Sherman Act. The NCAA argued that its pro-competitive and non-commercial justifications for the plan – protection of live gate, maintenance of competitive balance among NCAA member institutions, and the creation of a more attractive "product" to compete with other 7forms of entertainment – combined to make the plan reasonable. In September 1982, the district court found in favor of the plaintiffs, ruling that the plan violated antitrust laws. It enjoined the association from enforcing the contract. The NCAA appealed all the way to the United States Supreme Court, but lost in 1984 in a 7–2 ruling NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma. (If the television contracts the NCAA had with ABC, CBS, and ESPN had remained in effect for the 1984 season, they would have generated some $73.6 million for the association and its members.)
Late 1990s
In 1999, the NCAA was sued for discriminating against female athletes under Title IX for systematically giving men in graduate school more waivers than a woman to participate in college sports. In National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Smith, 525 U.S. 459 (1999) the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA was not subject to that law, without reviewing the merits of the discrimination claim.
Over the last two decades recruiting international athletes has become a growing trend among NCAA institutions. For example, most German athletes outside of Germany are based at US universities. For many European athletes, the American universities are the only option to pursue an academic and athletic career at the same time. Many of these students come to the US with high academic expectations and aspirations.
In 2009, Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, became the NCAA's first non-US member institution, joining Division II. In 2018, Division II membership approved allowing schools from Mexico to apply for membership; CETYS of Tijuana, Baja California expressed significant interest in joining at the time. However, Simon Fraser announced in 2025 that it had applied to return to Canada's national governing body of U Sports, and would leave the NCAA in 2027 if its application was accepted.
In 2014, the NCAA set a record high of $989 million in net revenue. Just shy of $1 billion, it is among the highest of all large sports organizations.
During the NCAA's 2022 annual convention, the membership ratified a new version of the organization's constitution. The new constitution dramatically simplifies a rulebook that many college sports leaders saw as increasingly bloated.
It also reduced the size of the NCAA Board of Governors from 20 to 9, and guaranteed that current and former athletes have voting representation on both the NCAA board and the governing bodies of each NCAA division. The new constitution was the first step in a reorganization process in which each division will have the right to set its own rules, with no approval needed from the rest of the NCAA membership.
Notable court cases
In the late-1940s, there were only two colleges in the country, Notre Dame and Pennsylvania, with national TV contracts, a considerable source of revenue. In 1951, the NCAA voted to prohibit any live TV broadcast of college football games during the season. No sooner had the NCAA voted to ban television than public outcry forced it to retreat. Instead, the NCAA voted to restrict the number of televised games for each team to stop the slide in gate attendance. University of Pennsylvania president Harold Stassen defied the monopoly and renewed its contract with ABC. Eventually, Penn dropped its suit when the NCAA, refusing Penn's request that the U.S. Attorney General rule on the legality of the NCAA's restrictive plan, threatened to expel the university from the association. Notre Dame continued televising its games through 1953, working around the ban by filming its games, then broadcasting them the next evening.
In 1957, the Colorado Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by the family of deceased Trinidad College football player Ray Herbert Dennison. Despite suffering a lethal concussion injury on the field in a game versus Fort Lewis A&M College, Dennison was not entitled to any compensation because he was not under a contractual obligation to play football. Furthermore, the court stated that the "college did not receive a direct benefit from the activities, since the college was not in the football business and received no benefit from this field of recreation".
In 1977, prompted partly by the Tarkanian Case, the US Congress initiated an investigation into the NCAA. It, combined with Tarkanian's case, forced the NCAA's internal files into the public record.
In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma that the NCAA's complete control of television rights violated the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts, paving the way for schools and conferences to independently make deals with TV broadcasters directly.
In 1998, the NCAA settled a $2.5 million lawsuit filed by former UNLV basketball coach, Jerry Tarkanian. Tarkanian sued the NCAA after he was forced to resign from UNLV, where he had been head coach from 1973 to 1992. The suit claimed the agency singled him out, penalizing the university's basketball program three times in that span. Tarkanian said, "They can never, ever, make up for all the pain and agony they caused me. All I can say is that for 25 years they beat the hell out of me". The NCAA said that it regretted the long battle and it now has more understanding of Tarkanian's position and that the case has changed the enforcement process for the better.
In 1999, the NCAA was sued for discriminating against female athletes under Title IX for systematically giving men in graduate school more waivers than women to participate in college sports. In National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Smith, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA was not subject to that law, without reviewing the merits of the discrimination claim.
In 2007, the case of White et al. v. NCAA, No. CV 06-999-RGK (C.D. Cal. September 20, 2006) was brought by former NCAA student-athletes Jason White, Brian Pollack, Jovan Harris, and Chris Craig as a class action lawsuit. They argued that the NCAA's current limits on a full scholarship or grant-in-aid was a violation of federal antitrust laws. Their reasoning was that in the absence of such a limit, NCAA member schools would be free to offer any financial aid packages they desired to recruit student athletes. The NCAA settled before a ruling by the court, by agreeing to set up the Former Student-Athlete Fund to "assist qualified candidates applying for receipt of career development expenses and/or reimbursement of educational expenses under the terms of the agreement with plaintiffs in a federal antitrust lawsuit."
In 2013, Jay Bilas claimed that the NCAA was taking advantage of individual players through jersey sales in its store. Specifically, he typed the names of several top college football players, Tajh Boyd, Teddy Bridgewater, Jadeveon Clowney, Johnny Manziel, and A. J. McCarron, into the search engine of the NCAA's official online store. The search results returned corresponding numbered team jerseys. The NCAA subsequently removed the team jerseys listed on its site.
In March 2014, four players filed a class action antitrust lawsuit (O'Bannon v. NCAA), alleging that the NCAA and its five dominant conferences are an "unlawful cartel". The suit charges that NCAA caps on the value of athletic scholarships have "illegally restricted the earning power of football and men's basketball players while making billions off their labor". Tulane University Sports Law Program Director Gabe Feldman called the suit "an instantly credible threat to the NCAA". On September 30, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that limiting compensation to the cost of an athlete's attendance at a university was sufficient. It simultaneously ruled against a federal judge's proposal to pay student athletes $5,000 per year in deferred compensation.
In August 2015, the National Labor Relations Board reversed a decision settled in the prior year that classified members of Northwestern University's scholarship football players as employees, thus, granting them the right to collectively bargain for their rights. The unionization efforts were a direct effort led by the College Athletes Player Association and Kain Colter, who operated with the support of the United Steelworkers group. The case was ultimately struck down due to difficulties in applying the ruling across both public and private institutions. The NCAA made several improvements to the value of athletic scholarships and the quality of healthcare coverage in response to this movement by the Northwestern football players. These reforms included guaranteeing the entire four years of scholarship in the event of a career-ending injury, the implementation of "cost of attendance" stipends, the institution of "unlimited" athlete meal plans, and protections for the name, image, and likeness of athletes by third parties such as Electronic Arts.
In 2018, former UCF kicker Donald De La Haye filed a lawsuit alleging that the university violated his First Amendment rights when it rescinded his full athletic scholarship over the income De La Haye made from his monetized YouTube channel, which he started before he attended college. UCF argued De La Haye violated the NCAA policy forbidding student-athletes from using their likenesses to make money. De La Haye ultimately settled with UCF so that he could obtain his degree from the university.
In June 2021, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously affirmed a ruling in NCAA v. Alston that provides for an incremental increase in how college athletes can be compensated. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the court's opinion, which upheld a district court judge's decision that the NCAA was violating antitrust law by placing limits on the education-related benefits that schools can provide to athletes. The decision allows schools to provide their athletes with unlimited compensation as long as it is some way connected to their education. The idea that college athletes should not be paid, a fundamental tenet of the 115-year-old NCAA, has faced increasing scrutiny in recent years. Federal antitrust lawsuits have slowly eroded strict amateurism rules during the past decade.
Headquarters
The modern era of the NCAA began in July 1955 when its executive director, Kansas City, Missouri native Walter Byers, moved the organization's headquarters from the LaSalle Hotel in Chicago (where its offices were shared by the headquarters of the Big Ten Conference) to the Fairfax Building in Downtown Kansas City. The move was intended to separate the NCAA from the direct influence of any individual conference and keep it centrally located.