Thepower conferences are the most prominentathletic conferences incollege football in the United States. They are part of theFootball Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of theNational Collegiate Athletic Association'sDivision I, the highest level of collegiate football in the nation, and are considered the most elite conferences within that tier. Power conferences have provided most of the participants in theCollege Football Playoff (CFP) and its predecessors, and generally have larger revenue, budgets, and television viewership than other college athletic programs. TheAtlantic Coast Conference (ACC),Big Ten Conference,Big 12 Conference, andSoutheastern Conference (SEC) are currently recognised as power conferences.[1]
For decades, the most prominent conferences sent their teams to postseasonbowl games, but the season frequently ended with multiple teams claiming the national championship. After the1990 and1991 seasons ended with consecutive split championships, several of the most prominent conferences and bowl games formed theBowl Coalition (1992–1994) and later theBowl Alliance (1995–1997) to provide a definitive national champion. In 1998, the six largest conferences—the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12,Big East, SEC, andPac-12—and the four most prominent bowl games—theFiesta,Orange,Rose, andSugar Bowls—formed theBowl Championship Series (BCS), with conference champions awardedAutomatic Qualifying (AQ) status to the bowl games and, provisionally, theNational Championship Game.
The defection of three Big East members to the ACC after the2005 conference realignment gradually diminished its stature, and it eventually split into two following arealignment in the early 2010s; at the same time, the BCS was reorganised into the College Football Playoff, and the remaining AQ conferences were collectively referred to as thePower Five. Afurther realignment in the early 2020s saw the Pac-12 left with only two members after the2023 season; the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC now form thePower Four, with further suggestions that the Big Ten and SEC, the two conferences with the largest media contracts and many of the most prestigious programs, currently form a "Power Two" tier above the ACC and Big 12.
As of the ongoing 2025 season, theFBS has 136 members, divided between the Power Four, five other conferences known as theGroup of Five (G5), the Pac-12, and twoindependent schools. The termpower conference is not defined by the NCAA, but the conferences are identified individually under NCAA rules as "autonomy conferences", which grants them some degree of independence from standard NCAA rules, such as financial compensation for student athletes.[2] The power conferences also compete in other collegiate sports, but are not necessarily the most prominent in each sport; for example, in men's college basketball, theBig East, which does not sponsor football, is also considered to be a power conference.
The ten FBS conferences as of the 2025–26academic year are listed. For the Power Four, the members of each conference are also listed:
The power conferences are all part ofNCAA Division I, which contains most of the largest and most competitive collegiate athletic programs in the United States, and theFootball Bowl Subdivision (FBS), which is the higher of the two levels ofcollege football within NCAA Division I.[5] It is unknown where the term "Power Conference" originated; it is not officially documented by the NCAA, though it has been used since at least 2006.[6] The top conferences in college football are called the "Power Four conferences": theBig Ten Conference, theBig 12 Conference, theAtlantic Coast Conference (ACC), and theSoutheastern Conference (SEC).[7] Since 2014, the power conferences have held some autonomy from the rest of Division I in regard to issues such as stipends and recruiting rules.[8][9][A]
Roughly half of the schools in the FBS play in one of the Power Four conferences. The remaining schools are eitherindependent or play in one of the conferences known as theGroup of Six conferences, which consists of theAmerican Conference ("American"),Conference USA (CUSA), theMid-American Conference (MAC), theMountain West Conference (MW), thePac-12 Conference ("Pac-12"), and theSun Belt Conference (SBC).[10] The term "Power Four conferences" is often shortened to "P4", while the remaining conferences are referred to as the "Group of Six conferences", or "Group of Five conferences" before the Pac-12's loss of autonomy.[11] The FBS has two independents as of the 2025 season: theNotre Dame Fighting Irish and theUConn Huskies. Notre Dame is considered equal to the Power Four schools, being a full (with the exception of football) member of the ACC with an annual five-game football scheduling agreement with that conference; Notre Dame also hasits own national television contract and its own arrangement for access to the CFP-affiliated bowl games should it meet stated competitive criteria. The other independents are generally considered to be on the same level as the G6 conferences.
Compared to the G6 conferences, power conference schools have significantly higher revenue, due to television deals with major networks and streaming services.[12] In 2022, the power conferences generated a combined $3.3 billion in revenue.[13] College football games often draw strong television ratings, and, along with theNFL, college football was one of the few television properties to grow in live ratings between 2013 and 2023.[14] In 2022, college football games between power conference teams made up five of the ten most-watched non-NFL sporting events among U.S. viewers. With 22.56 million viewers, the2022 national championship game ranked as the most watched college football game of the year, and as the 33rd most-watched sporting event in the United States; only NFL games ranked higher.[15] Almost every Power Four school has ahome stadium capacity of at least 40,000,[16] and the power conferences all had an average attendance of at least 46,000 in 2024. This compares to an FBS average attendance of just over 42,000 and Group of Six average attendance that ranged between 14,000 and 25,000 for each conference,[17] with legacy Pac-12 members Oregon State and Washington State respectively averaging about 35,000 and 22,000.[18] This revenue advantage allows Power Four conferences to pay higher salaries to coaches[12] and invest in expensive athletic facilities and amenities.[19] Although schools cannot directly pay student athletes,[20] since 2021 school boosters and other third parties canpay student athletes for their name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights. Much of this NIL money goes to Power Four conference athletes, although numerous athletes from other conferences have also received NIL compensation.[21]
Teams in the Power Four conferences play an eight or nine-game conference schedule, and play an additional three or four non-conference games to fill out their 12-game regular season schedule.[22][B] Teams from the Power Four and the Group of Five often play non-conference games against each other during the season, and sometimes also play against teams from theFCS, the lower tier of division one football.[24] However, many coaches of power conference schools have argued that power conference schools should only be allowed to schedule games against other power conference schools.[10] All Power Four conferences that require their members to schedule at least one power conference opponent in nonconference play consider Notre Dame to be a power conference opponent for such purposes; the Big Ten and SEC also count Army as such an opponent.[25][26] Though not required to do so, all Power Four conferences holdconference championship games following the conclusion of the regular season and prior to the College Football Playoff. The power conferences previously each had two divisions and matched the winner of each division in the conference championship game, but all of the Power Four conferences have scrapped divisions, and conference championship games take place between the two highest-ranking teams.[27]
The College Football Playoff takes place after the conference championship games and contemporaneously with several other bowl games. Following several changes after the 2023 college football season, the playoff consists of 12 teams, with the top five conference champions receiving automatic bids to the playoffs.[28] At least one Group of Five Conference will be awarded one of the automatic bids in each playoff.[29] The College Football Playoff requires that a conference have at least eight teams in order to be eligible for an automatic qualifying bid, so the two-member Pac-12[C] is not eligible to receive an automatic bid.[31] The four highest-ranked conference champions receive first-round byes, while the remaining eight teams play in the opening round of the playoffs at the home fields of the higher seeds. The "New Year's Six" bowls, which have held an important role in the college football postseason since before the establishment of the College Football Playoff, host the quarterfinals and semifinals on a rotating basis. TheCollege Football Playoff National Championship, the final game of the College Football Playoff, is held at a separately determined neutral site.[28]
College football originated in theNortheastern United States in the final third of the 19th century, with the1869 Princeton vs. Rutgers football game often considered to be the first college football game.[32] The schools that eventually formed theIvy League dominated college football in the 19th century and for parts of the 20th century, claiming numerousnational championships.[33] Motivated in large part by fatalities and injuries sustained in college football, PresidentTheodore Roosevelt worked with various collegiate athletic programs to establish the NCAA in 1906.[34] The NCAA was preceded by the earliest athletic conferences, including the Big Ten, which was founded in 1896 as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives and was often referred to as the "Western Conference". The conference became known as the Big Ten after expanding to ten teams in 1917, though it did not legally adopt the "Big Ten" name until 1987. TheSouthern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA), founded in 1894, at its peak consisted of 28 schools across almost every Southern state, and was the predecessor to both the SEC and the ACC.[35]
TheMissouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MVIAA) was formed in 1907, and in 1928 the MVIAA split into two conferences, with the larger schools from the MVIAA forming the Big Six Conference.[36] The Big Six later expanded to eight teams in 1957, becoming known as theBig Eight Conference. TheSouthwest Conference (SWC) was formed in 1914 by several schools in Texas and neighboring states and, after some early defections, maintained stable membership into the 1990s. ThePacific Coast Conference (PCC) was founded in 1915, but disbanded in 1959 following a "pay-for-play" scandal. Some of the former members of the Pacific Coast Conference formed the Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU) that same year, and by 1968 the AAWU had renamed itself as the Pac-8 and contained most of the former members of the PCC.[37] Several of the larger schools split off from the SIAA in 1921 to form theSouthern Conference, and the SIAA ultimately dissolved in 1942. The Southern Conference in turn later experienced the departure of its most prominent teams, first with the secession of 13 schools located south or west of the Appalachians to form the SEC in 1932. Most of the remaining large schools departed the Southern Conference in 1953 to form the ACC, and after losing its top programs, the Southern Conference ultimately became part of the FCS.[35] The Ivy League was officially founded in the 1950s, but the football programs of Ivy League schools declined in stature afterWorld War II, and the conference ultimately dropped down to Division I-AA in 1982.[33]
Until the 1990s, many top programs, particularly in the Northeast, played as football independents.[38] Many of these independents were affiliated with theBig East Conference, theAtlantic 10 Conference (A-10), or theMetro Conference, each of which were founded in the 1970s as non-football conferences. In 1962, several members of theSkyline Conference and theBorder Conference founded theWestern Athletic Conference (WAC). Although generally not considered a power conference, four of the six founding WAC members ultimately joined one of the Power Four conferences, and the1984 BYU Cougars football team won the national championship.[39][40][41] NCAA divisions were created in 1956, initially for basketball and cross-country, with the largest schools placed in theUniversity Division and other schools in theCollege Division. The NCAA requested all schools to classify themselves as members of the College or University divisions in 1968, and in 1973 the University Division was renamed Division I and given the power to establish some of its own rules related to matters such as recruitment and membership criteria. In 1978, Division I football programs were further sub-divided into Division I-A (later Division I FBS) and Division I-AA (later Division I FCS).[42]
TheRose Bowl, a postseason game matching top teams from the West with top teams from the East, was first played in 1902 and became a yearly tradition in 1916. As college football grew beyond its regional affiliations in the 1930s, it garnered increased national attention. Four newbowl games were created: theOrange Bowl,Sugar Bowl, andSun Bowl in 1935, and theCotton Bowl in 1937. In lieu of an actual national championship, these bowl games provided a way to match up teams from distant regions of the country that did not otherwise play. In 1936, theAssociated Press began itsweekly poll of prominent sports writers, ranking all of the nation's college football teams. Since there was no national championship game, the final version of the AP poll was used to determine who was crowned the national champion of college football.[43]
The first college football game was televised in 1938, and as universities began to widely televise their games after World War II, the NCAA took control of television broadcast rights in 1951 and restricted the number of games that a program could air on television.[44] The 1984Supreme Court caseNCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma spurred a round of conference realignment by ending the NCAA's monopoly on television rights of college football games, instead granting the rights to individual schools and conferences.[45] With the exception of Notre Dame, all of the major independent programs joined a conference in the early 1990s.[46] Many of the independents in the Northeast and elsewhere on theEastern Seaboard joined the Big East, which began playing football in 1991.[37] Other independent schools joined the Big Ten, the ACC, or the SEC, and in 1992 the SEC became the first Division I conference to hold a conference championship game for football.[27] The Southwest Conference dissolved in the wake of a series of scandals and concerns over an insufficiently large television market, and four teams from that conference joined with the Big 8 to create the Big 12 Conference in 1994.[37] The remaining SWC schools joined the WAC or the newly-formed Conference USA, though most later joined one of the Power Four conferences;[D] other future power conference schools such as Louisville and BYU also played in the WAC or Conference USA during the 1990s.
Map of power conferences in 1993 |
|---|
 Georgia Tech Wake Forest Virginia NC State UNC Duke Clemson Maryland Florida State  Boston College Syracuse Pittsburgh Miami (FL) Rutgers WVU Virginia Tech Temple  Colorado Iowa State Kansas Kansas State Missouri Nebraska Oklahoma Oklahoma State  Indiana Michigan Michigan State Ohio State Illinois Iowa Minnesota Northwestern Purdue Wisconsin Penn State  Arizona Arizona State California UCLA Oregon Oregon State USC Stanford Washington Washington State  Florida Kentucky Georgia Tennessee Vanderbilt Alabama Auburn LSU Ole Miss Mississippi State Arkansas South Carolina  Houston Texas Tech SMU Texas A&M Texas Rice Baylor TCU  Notre Dame The conferences of theBowl Coalition (including independent Notre Dame), as well as the future founding conferences of theBowl Championship Series (BCS), during the1993 season:[47] Atlantic Coast Conference Big East Conference (1979-2013)Big Eight Conference Big Ten Conference Pacific-10SEC Southwest Conference Notre Dame |
By the middle of the 20th century, the Rose Bowl matched up the Big Ten champion against the champion of the PCC and its successors, the Sugar Bowl generally hosted the conference champion of the SEC, and the Cotton Bowl generally hosted the conference champion of the SWC. The Orange Bowl often hosted the champion of the Big Eight, though it later developed close ties with the ACC. TheFiesta Bowl was initially founded in 1971 to host the WAC champion, but later rose to prominence in the 1980s while frequently hosting games involving independents, including the1987 Fiesta Bowl, which served as the de facto national championship game for that season. From 1968 to 1992, the number one and number two ranked teams in the AP poll met only eight times in a bowl game, frequently leading to situations in which multiple teams claimed the national championship. Seeking a more definitive way to determine the national champion, the SEC, Big 8, SWC (prior to its dissolution), ACC, Big East, and independent Notre Dame joined with several bowls to form theBowl Coalition, which was later succeeded by the similarBowl Alliance. The Big Ten and Pac-10 declined to join either group in favor of continuing to send their respective champion to the Rose Bowl, contributing to split national championships during some seasons in the 1990s.[48]
In 1998, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was created by the Big 10, Pac-12, and the former members of the Bowl Alliance.[49] The Rose Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Orange Bowl, and the Fiesta Bowl all took part in the system, with anational championship game either rotating among the four bowl sites (prior to the 2006 season) or played as a separate game. The BCS succeeded in bringing an end to split national championships, except in the2003 season, when LSU won the national championship game and was crowned national champion by theCoaches Poll, but USC was selected as the national champion by theAP poll. While the number of AQ conferences was technically variable,[50] the BCS always had six AQ conferences for its entire history between 1998 and 2013. Following the departure of several Big East members to the ACC, the non-football schools of the Big East known as the "Catholic 7" chose to withdraw from the conference, ultimately creating a new conference that took on the Big East name.[51] The rump Big East renamed itself as theAmerican Athletic Conference (now known as the American Conference) and took the Big East's automatic bid for the 2013 season.[52] TheMountain West Conference, formed in 1998 by several former WAC members, was perhaps the closest of the other conferences to getting AQ status, but its request for AQ status was denied in 2012.[53]
In addition to creating a national championship game, the BCS also created a set format for other major bowls. After the two top teams in the BCS rankings were matched up in theBCS National Championship Game, the other three or (after the 2005 season) four bowls selected other top teams. The BCS ranking formula used a combination of polls and computer selection methods to determine team rankings, though conference championships also affected game selection.[49] The term "BCS conference" was used by many fans to refer to one of the six conferences whose champions received an automatic berth in one of the five BCS bowl games, although the BCS itself used the term "automatic qualifying conference" (AQ conference).[54] Each of the bowls had a historical link with one or more of the six BCS conferences with the exception of the former Big East, and the bowl games selected a team from each of these conferences if it was eligible for a BCS bowl and not playing in the national title game. Notre Dame remained an independent in football, but had guaranteed access to the BCS bowls when it met certain defined performance criteria.[55] The conferences automatic qualifying conferences and their traditional bowl links were:
Map of automatic qualifying conference schools in 2013 |
|---|
The other conferences (listed below) were non-AQ conferences because they did not receive an annual automatic bid to a BCS bowl game. The highest ranked champion of any non-AQ conference received an AQ bid if they ranked in the top 12 of the final BCS poll or ranked in the top 16 and higher than a champion of an AQ conference.[56] The conferences in this group were:[57]
The BCS facedseveral controversies throughout its tenure, driven largely by teams and fans dissatisfied at being left out of the championship game. The presence of two SEC teams in the2012 BCS National Championship Game brought the opposition to the BCS to a head, and helped spur the adoption of the College Football Playoff beginning with the 2014 season.[49] Like the BCS, the four-team College Football Playoff took place after the conference championship games and contemporaneously with several other bowl games. It rotated among six bowl games, with two bowl games used each year as the national semi-finals, and four other bowls matching the remaining top teams in the country. These six bowl games were collectively labeled as the "New Year's Six" bowl games. The New Year's Six consisted of the four BCS bowls, the Cotton Bowl, and thePeach Bowl, the latter of which was established in 1968 but had been considered a minor bowl for much of its history.[58][59]
Although the term "Power Five conferences" had been used by at least 2006,[6] it gained prominence following the collapse of the Big East and the end of BCS automatic qualifying status for conferences; the Power Five conferences consisted of the ACC, the Big Ten, the Big 12, the Pac-12, and the SEC.[60][61][62][63] Each conference champion from the Power Five and the highest-ranked Group of Five conference champion were guaranteed a spot in a New Year's Six Bowl.[64] Because there were four spots in the playoffs and five power conferences, at least one Power Five champion was always left out of the playoff. In some seasons only two or three P5 champions were selected to the playoff, though the2023 Florida State Seminoles were the lone undefeated P5 champion to be passed over for selection.[65]
The new playoff system drew strong television ratings, helping to boost the profile of college football and specifically to the Power Five conferences, who constituted all but one of the CFP participants in the four-team era, and the remaining FBS programs.[66] Responding in part to the possibility that the Power Five might split off to form its own organization, in 2014 the NCAA Division I Board of Directors granted the Power Five conferences autonomy over rules such as stipends and staff sizes.[8] The CFP also led to changes in stature among the Power Five, and the Pac-12's failure to place a team in the CFP for seven years contributed to the exodus of most of its programs following the 2023 season.[67] Bowl games declined in prestige as more focus went to the playoff, and even the New Year's Six bowls frequently saw top players opt out.[66] Like the BCS, the new system endured a series of controversies related to teams being left out of the championship process, both among the Power Five and the Group of Five, leading many tocall for a playoff.[49] The2021 Cincinnati Bearcats were the only Group of Five team[F] to ever play in the College Football Playoff prior to the playoff's expansion to twelve teams in 2024; the Bearcats were defeated in the semi-final2021 Cotton Bowl Classic.[69] Another Group of Five team, the2017 UCF Knights,[F] was left out of the CFP, but proclaimed themselves the national champion after going undefeated in the regular season and winning the2018 Peach Bowl.[G][49] In 2022, the College Football playoff board voted to expand the playoff to twelve teams, with the new system taking effect for the 2024 season.[70]
As part of theearly-2020s NCAA conference realignment, ten schools departed from the Pac-12 following the2023 college football season, leaving Oregon State and Washington State as the last remaining members of the Pac-12. Although the Football Bowl Subdivision requires conferences to have at least eight members, the conference continued operating with just two members because conferences are allowed a two-year grace period after losing members. In early 2024, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors stripped the Pac-12 of its autonomous conference status.[31] In light of the changes, various sources began referring to the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC as the Power Four Conferences,[71][7][72][73][74][75][76] with the Pac-12 relegated to "de facto Group of 5 status".[77][78]
The FBS has undergone several waves of realignment since the 1990s, when the Bowl Coalition was established. The first realignment occurred in the 1990s, and resulted in the demise of the Southwest Conference, which was a member of the Bowl Coalition and at times considered equal to some of the power conferences; as well as many schools giving up independent status to join conferences. In the early 1990s,Arkansas left the Southwest Conference for the SEC; theoriginal Big East Conference began sponsoring football, with eight formerfootball independents joining either for all sports or football only; and other major independents such asFlorida State (to the ACC),Penn State (to the Big Ten), andSouth Carolina (to the SEC) joined major conferences. In the1996 NCAA conference realignment, the SWC dissolved, and four Texas teams from that conference joined with theBig 8 schools to form theBig 12 Conference.[37]
During anotherphase of realignment in 2005, three schools (Boston College,Miami-FL andVirginia Tech) jumped from the Big East to the ACC, andTemple also left the conference (before eventually returning in 2013). The Big East responded by adding former basketball-only member Connecticut and three schools from CUSA.[79][37]
College football underwent anothermajor conference realignment from 2010 to 2014, as the Big Ten and Pac-10 sought to become large enough to stage championship games. Members of the original Big East left the conference to join the Big 12, Big Ten, and ACC. The Big 12 lost members to the SEC, the Pac-12, and the Big Ten, while the Big Ten also gained one former ACC member. The remaining members of the Big Eastsplit into two conferences: theAmerican Athletic Conference (now the American Conference; short form "American") and a newBig East Conference that does not sponsor football (only three of the original 10 members of the Big East sponsor football, all at the second-tierDivision I FCS level). The American, the football successor to the Big East, is no longer considered a power conference. Despite the major conference realignment from 2010 to 2014, relatively few schools dropped out of or joined the ranks of the power conferences. Two of the three non-AQ schools that had appeared in multiple BCS bowlsleft the Mountain West Conference and joined a power conference, asUtah joined the Pac-12 andTCU joined the Big 12. Former Big East members Temple andSouth Florida became part of The American; another former Big East member,UConn, left American Conference football after the 2019 season to become an FBS independent while otherwise joining the Big East. Of these, only Temple was a founding member of the Big East in football.[79][80]
The most recent major realignment isongoing, though there is no future planned power conference realignment after the 2024 season. During a period of less than two months in 2021, the Big 12 both gained and lost members. First, on July 30, the conference lost two of its mainstays when Oklahoma and Texas announced that they would leave for the SEC no later than 2025;[81] the two schools later reached a buyout agreement allowing them to join the SEC in 2024.[82] The Big 12 reloaded by announcing four new members on September 10, initially announcing that American members Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF plus FBS independent BYU would join no later than 2024.[83] BYU's initial announcement stated that it would join in 2023,[84] and the other three schools' 2023 entry date was confirmed after they reached a buyout agreement with The American.[85] On June 30, 2022, Pac-12 mainstays UCLA and USC announced they would move to the Big Ten in 2024.[86] The Pac-12 lost another member a little more than a year later when Colorado returned to the Big 12 in 2024 after an absence of 13 years.[87]
Five more schools announced their departure from the Pac-12 on August 4, 2023; Oregon and Washington joined the Big Ten and Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah joined the Big 12.[88][89] Less than a month after this exodus, California and Stanford announced their departure from the Pac-12 to join the ACC in 2024, with American Conference member SMU also joining the ACC.[90] This realignment led to Pac-12 being considered a de facto member of the Group of Five,[77] and fueled discussion that the Big Ten and the SEC might ultimately emerge as the "Power Two" conferences.[91][92] The realignment also generated much commentary regarding the lack of geographical proximity within conferences.[93][94][95] In a 2022 article,FiveThirtyEight described the Big Ten as the first "major college athletics league" to be bicoastal (the Big Ten would later be joined by the ACC in this distinction after the latter conference added Stanford and California), adding that the average distance between FBS conference members was set to increase from 336 miles to 412 miles.[96]
Indicates a football-only move.
Indicates a non-football move.
This list includes all institutions that have either left or announced their departure from the ACC, Big East,[a] Big 12, Pac-12, Big 10, or SEC since the establishment of the Bowl Championship Series in 1998.
| Institution | Year moved | From conference | To conference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Virginia Tech | 2000 | A-10/Big East[b] | Big East[b] |
| Miami | 2004 | Big East | ACC |
| Virginia Tech | 2004 | Big East | ACC |
| Boston College | 2005 | Big East | ACC |
| Temple | 2005 | A-10/Big East[c] | A-10/Independent[c] |
| Colorado | 2011 | Big 12 | Pac-12 |
| Nebraska | 2011 | Big 12 | Big Ten |
| Missouri | 2012 | Big 12 | SEC |
| Texas A&M | 2012 | Big 12 | SEC |
| West Virginia | 2012 | Big East | Big 12 |
| Notre Dame | 2013 | Big East/Independent[d] | ACC/Independent[d] |
| Pittsburgh | 2013 | Big East | ACC |
| Syracuse | 2013 | Big East | ACC |
| Louisville | 2014 | AAC[a] | ACC |
| Maryland | 2014 | ACC | Big Ten |
| Rutgers | 2014 | AAC[a] | Big Ten |
| Texas | 2024 | Big 12 | SEC |
| Oklahoma | 2024 | Big 12 | SEC |
| USC | 2024 | Pac-12 | Big Ten |
| UCLA | 2024 | Pac-12 | Big Ten |
| Oregon | 2024 | Pac-12 | Big Ten |
| Washington | 2024 | Pac-12 | Big Ten |
| Colorado | 2024 | Pac-12 | Big 12 |
| Utah | 2024 | Pac-12 | Big 12 |
| Arizona | 2024 | Pac-12 | Big 12 |
| Arizona State | 2024 | Pac-12 | Big 12 |
| California | 2024 | Pac-12 | ACC |
| Stanford | 2024 | Pac-12 | ACC |
Indicates a football-only move.
Indicates a non-football move.
This list includes all institutions that joined or have announced that they will join the ACC, Big 12, Pac-12, Big 10, or SEC after the establishment of the Bowl Championship Series in 1998, and that had previously been independent or had affiliated with a non-power conference. It also includes all institutions that joined the original Big East between 1998 and 2013, and teams that joined the AAC for the 2013 season, since that conference inherited the Big East's BCS automatic qualifying status for that season.[98]
| Institution | Year moved | From conference | To conference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connecticut | 2004 | Big East/Independent[a] | Big East |
| Cincinnati | 2005 | Conference USA | Big East |
| Louisville | 2005 | Conference USA | Big East |
| South Florida | 2005 | Conference USA | Big East |
| Utah | 2011 | MW | Pac-12 |
| TCU | 2012 | MW | Big 12 |
| Temple | 2012 | A-10/MAC[b] | Big East |
| Houston | 2013 | Conference USA | American |
| Memphis | 2013 | Conference USA | American |
| SMU | 2013 | Conference USA | American |
| UCF | 2013 | Conference USA | American |
| BYU | 2023 | WCC/Independent[c] | Big 12 |
| Cincinnati | 2023 | American | Big 12 |
| Houston | 2023 | American | Big 12 |
| UCF | 2023 | American | Big 12 |
| SMU | 2024 | American | ACC |
The following table lists the number of times that a member of each conference appeared was selected to appear in aBCS bowl game (from 1998 to 2013), aNew Year's Six bowl game (from 2014 to 2023), or the College Football Playoff (since 2014). From the 1998 to 2005 seasons eight teams were selected, from 2006 to 2013 ten teams were selected, and since 2014 twelve teams have been selected to appear in these games.
A * indicates a team from that conference won the national championship as determined by the BCS or the College Football Playoff,[H] while a ^ indicates a team from that conference was the runner-up in the national championship game. Statistics reflect conference membership at the time of the game. Note that theAmerican filled theBig East's automatic bid in2013.
| Power conferences | Other conferences and independents | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | ACC | Big 12 | Big Ten | Pac-12[I] | SEC | Big East | ND | MW | American | Others |
| 2024 | 2 | 1 | 4 | n/a | 3 | n/a | 1 | 1 | - | - |
| 2023 | 1 | 1 | 3* | 2^ | 4 | n/a | - | - | - | 1 |
| 2022 | 1 | 2^ | 3 | 2 | 3* | n/a | - | - | 1 | - |
| 2021 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 3*^ | n/a | 1 | - | 1 | - |
| 2020 | 2 | 2 | 1^ | 1 | 4* | n/a | 1 | - | 1 | - |
| 2019 | 2^ | 2 | 3 | 1 | 3* | n/a | - | - | 1 | - |
| 2018 | 1* | 2 | 2 | 1 | 4^ | n/a | 1 | - | 1 | - |
| 2017 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 3*^ | n/a | - | - | 1 | - |
| 2016 | 2* | 1 | 4 | 2 | 2^ | n/a | - | - | - | 1 |
| 2015 | 2^ | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2* | n/a | 1 | - | 1 | - |
| 2014 | 2 | 2 | 2* | 2^ | 3 | n/a | - | 1 | - | - |
| 2013 | 2* | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2^ | n/a | - | - | 1 | - |
| 2012 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2* | 1 | 1^ | - | n/a | 1 |
| 2011 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2*^ | 1 | - | - | n/a | - |
| 2010 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2^ | 2* | 1 | - | 1 | n/a | - |
| 2009 | 1 | 1^ | 2 | 1 | 2* | 1 | - | 1 | n/a | 1 |
| 2008 | 1 | 2^ | 2 | 1 | 2* | 1 | - | 1 | n/a | - |
| 2007 | 1 | 2 | 2^ | 1 | 2* | 1 | - | - | n/a | 1 |
| 2006 | 1 | 1 | 2^ | 1 | 2* | 1 | 1 | - | n/a | 1 |
| 2005 | 1 | 1* | 1 | 2^ | 1 | 1 | 1 | - | n/a | - |
| 2004 | 1 | 2^ | 1 | 1* | 1 | 1 | - | 1 | n/a | - |
| 2003 | 1 | 2^ | 2 | 1 | 1* | 1 | - | - | n/a | - |
| 2002 | 1 | 1 | 2* | 2 | 1 | 1^ | - | - | n/a | - |
| 2001 | 1 | 2^ | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1* | - | - | n/a | - |
| 2000 | 1^ | 1* | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | - | n/a | - |
| 1999 | 1* | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1^ | - | - | n/a | - |
| 1998 | 1^ | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2* | 1 | - | n/a | n/a | - |
| Total | 36 | 40 | 58 | 37 | 61 | 15 | 9 | 6 | 8 | 6 |
| Champs | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 15 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Ten "non-AQ" teams appeared in the nine following BCS games, with an overall record of 5-3:
Of these appearances, all were via automatic qualifying bids, except Boise State's participation in the highly controversial 2010 Fiesta Bowl in which the Broncos were selected via at-large bid and played fellow BCS Buster TCU.
College Football Playoff semifinal inbold. Group of Five team initalics. Asterisks denotes years in which Group of Five teams won the game.
| Season | Bowl | Winner | Loser | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *2014 | 2014 Fiesta Bowl | No. 20Boise State (MW) | 38 | No. 10Arizona (Pac-12) | 30 |
| *2015 | 2015 Peach Bowl | No. 18Houston (American) | 38 | No. 9Florida State (ACC) | 24 |
| 2016 | 2017 Cotton Bowl | No. 8Wisconsin (Big Ten) | 24 | No. 15Western Michigan (MAC) | 16 |
| *2017 | 2018 Peach Bowl | No. 12UCF (American) | 34 | No. 7Auburn (SEC) | 27 |
| 2018 | 2019 Fiesta Bowl | No. 11LSU (SEC) | 40 | No. 8UCF (American) | 32 |
| 2019 | 2019 Cotton Bowl | No. 10Penn State (Big Ten) | 53 | No. 17Memphis (American) | 39 |
| 2020 | 2021 Peach Bowl | No. 9Georgia (SEC) | 24 | No. 8Cincinnati (American) | 21 |
| 2021 | 2022 Cotton Bowl | No. 1Alabama (SEC) | 27 | No. 4Cincinnati (American) | 6 |
| *2022 | 2023 Cotton Bowl | No. 16Tulane (American) | 46 | No. 10USC (Pac-12) | 45 |
| 2023 | 2024 Fiesta Bowl (January) | No. 8Oregon (Pac-12) | 45 | No. 23Liberty (CUSA) | 6 |
| 2024 | 2024 Fiesta Bowl (December) | No. 4Penn State (Big Ten) | 31 | No. 9Boise State (MW) | 14 |
| Conference | Total Revenue[99] | Distribution Per School[100] |
|---|---|---|
| Big Ten Conference | $879.9 million | $60.5 million (58.8 to 2014 additions) |
| Southeastern Conference | $852.6 million | $51 million |
| Atlantic Coast Conference | $707.0 million | $43.3-46.9 million |
| Pac-12 Conference | $603.9 million | $33.6 million |
| Big 12 Conference | $510.7 million | $43.8-48.2 million |
| Conference | National TV contract | TV Revenue (Per Year) | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| March Madness (college basketball) | CBS, Turner | $8.8bn ($1.1bn) | |
| College Football Playoff | ESPN, TNT | $5.6bn ($470m) | |
| Big Ten Conference (Big Ten) | Fox, NBC, CBS | $2.6bn ($440m) | [101] |
| Big 12 Conference (Big 12) | Fox, ESPN | $2.6bn ($200m) | |
| Southeastern Conference (SEC) | ESPN | $2.25bn[102] ($55m)[J] | |
| Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) | ESPN | $1.86bn ($155m)[103] |
| Conference | Attendance |
|---|---|
| Atlantic Coast Conference | 46,059 |
| Big Ten Conference | 66,782 |
| Big 12 Conference | 47,889 |
| Southeastern Conference | 79,763 |
| FBS average | 42,161 |
 | This section needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(August 2024) |
Each power conference sponsors at least 22 sports, with the Big Ten sponsoring the most at 28. Among all NCAA conferences, only two match or surpass the Big Ten's sports sponsorship level. The Ivy League sponsors 32 sports.[104] In the 2025–26 school year, theDivision IIConference Carolinas sponsors 26 sports on its own, and partners with other Division II conferences to offer conference-level championships in four more sports.[105] Power Four schools dominate thelist of NCAA schools with the most NCAA Division I championships; of the top fifteen schools, only theUniversity of Denver, which last played football in 1960, does not play in a Power Four conference.[106] Power Four schools also generally dominate the standings in the Division INACDA Directors' Cup and theCapital One Cup, two awards honoring schools with the greatest collegiate athletic success across all sports. For example, the top ten of the 2022-2023 Division I NACDA Directors' Cup standings consisted entirely of power conference programs.[107]
The Power Four conferences are not necessarily the most prominent conferences in all sports in which they compete. For example, in men's college basketball, the Big East Conference is also generally considered to be a power conference.[108][109][110] In basketball and some other sports, the Division I programs that are not part of the power conferences are often referred to as "mid-major" programs, although the appropriateness of the term has been criticized since some mid-major programs have resources equal to that of some power conference programs. Most notably,Gonzaga, a member of the mid-majorWest Coast Conference but set to join the reimagined Pac-12 in 2026, is generally considered a power program in men's basketball.[110]
In2024, theNational Invitation Tournament, an annual men's college basketball tournament, was restructured such that the then-Power Five conferences, along with their former BCS counterpart the Big East, received two automatic bids with accompanyinghome court advantage, with the two bids selected from teams in those conferences that were not selected for themain men's basketball tournament. The move drew criticism from mid-major universities and conferences, as the previous NIT structure had awarded automatic bids to all Division I conferences whose teams with the strongest regular season record had not qualified for the NCAA Tournament.[111] The NCAA admitted the maneuver was done in what eventually proved to be an unsuccessful attempt to preempta proposed alternative tournament to the NIT.[112] By contrast, the NCAA did not use this method of setting the field for theWomen's Basketball Invitation Tournament, which it launched in the 2023–24 season as a direct parallel to the NIT. It instead followed the 2006-2023 NIT practice of inviting all regular-season conference champions that failed to make the NCAA tournament, if otherwise eligible for postseason play.[113][K]
The overall institutional profiles and academic prestige of colleges and universities have a major influence on collegiate athletics conference membership,[114][115][116] and athletic conference membership can impact a university's fundraising, academics, and overall reputation.[117][118] Membership in theAssociation of American Universities (AAU), a 71-member organization ofresearch universities in the United States and Canada, has frequently been discussed as a factor in conference realignment, particularly for the Big Ten.[114][119][120][121] About half of the Power Four schools are in the AAU, with most of those schools in the ACC or Big Ten, although several are members of the Big 12 or the SEC. TheCarnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, a classification system of universities based on research activity,[122] lists nearly all Power Four schools as "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research spending and doctorate production"; the exceptions are TCU and Wake Forest, each of which is listed as "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research spending and doctorate production". Of the 30 U.S. universities with the greatest research expenditures in 2022, nearly two-thirds were members of one of the power conferences.[123] Some of the Power Four conferences share academic resources among conference members through related academic consortiums such as theBig Ten Academic Alliance and the Atlantic Coast Conference Academic Consortium.[124][117]
Out of all Power Four schools, only five are religiously affiliated: Baylor, Boston College, BYU, Notre Dame, and TCU.[125] Eight Power Four schools that are now officially nonsectarian were founded as faith-based institutions—ACC members Duke, SMU, Syracuse, and Wake Forest, Big Ten members Northwestern and USC, and SEC members Auburn (the only currently public institution among this group) and Vanderbilt. Most became officially nonsectarian in the 20th century. The main exceptions are Auburn, which was taken over by the state of Alabama in 1872 due to financial issues; Northwestern, which committed itself to a nonsectarian admissions policy at its 1851 founding; and SMU, which has been in a legal battle to formally separate itself from the United Methodist Church since 2019, with the school having won an intermediate appeal in the Texas courts in 2021. Another Power Four school, Kentucky, was founded as a publicly chartered department within the faith-based Kentucky University (nowTransylvania University) before becoming an independent public institution in 1878.
The Power 5 refers to five conferences, including the SEC, considered the elite of collegiate football.
Even though the system is usually stacked in their favor, the haves — schools from the traditional power five conferences, the Southeastern, Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-10 — are already bent out of shape.
In 2014, the [NCAA Division I Board of Directors] created a new 'autonomy' model, granting the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC the ability to make some of their own rules together, which happened the next year with full cost-of-attendance scholarships. The autonomy group became colloquially known as the 'Power 5' and regularly held its own meetings, but didn't do much else legislatively with that autonomy power.
In 1928, the MVIAA split into two conferences, both retaining the MVIAA name officially, but the one involving the larger schools took "Big Six" as a descriptive moniker. The Big Six were Oklahoma, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa State. Drake, Grinnell, Washington and Oklahoma A&M were in the second MVIAA conference, which was known familiarly as the Missouri Valley.
But the [Metro Conference] didn't sponsor football and it needed to grow if it intended to survive against the heavies of that time: the SEC, ACC, Southwest Conference, Big Eight, Big Ten and Pac-10.
The Big East began the Bowl Championship Series era in 1998 as one of six privileged football leagues. It has now been re-cobbled among the Gilligan's Island "And the Rest" leagues along with the Mid-American, Sun Belt, Conference USA and the Mountain West.
No one is under the impression the new Pac-12 will be the Pac-12 of old...It's essentially going to be a new Group of 5-level conference, hoping to be in the strongest position to earn that fifth CFP auto-bid.
