Big Ten Conference

Big Ten Conference

The Big Ten Conference is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. The conference includes the flagship public university in each of 11 states stretching from New Jersey to Nebraska. 12 of the 14 members feature enrollments of 30,000 or more students. Collectively, Big Ten universities educate more than 520,000 total students and have 5. 7 million living alumni.

About Big Ten Conference in brief

Summary Big Ten ConferenceThe Big Ten Conference is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. The conference includes the flagship public university in each of 11 states stretching from New Jersey to Nebraska, as well as two additional public land-grant schools and a private university. Big Ten member institutions are major research universities with large financial endowments and strong academic reputations. 12 of the 14 members feature enrollments of 30,000 or more students. Collectively, Big Ten universities educate more than 520,000 total students and have 5. 7 million living alumni. The Big Ten has grown to 14 members, with the following universities accepting invitations to join: Pennsylvania State University in 1990, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 2011, and both the University of Maryland and Rutgers University in 2014. Johns Hopkins University was invited in 2012 to join the Big Ten as an associate member participating in men’s lacrosse, and in 2015, it was also accepted as an associates member in women’s Lacrosse. Notre Dame joined the Big ten on July 1, 2017 as an Associate member in men’s ice hockey. The Conference sponsors championship competition in 14 men’s and 14 women’s NCAA sanctioned sports. It continues to field its other sports in the NCAA Division III Centennial Conference. Women’s varsity sports not sponsored by the conference that are played by Big Ten schools include women’s basketball, women’s soccer, and women’s volleyball. For over eight decades this conference consisted of ten universities, and presently has 14 member and two affiliate institutions.

They compete in NCAA Division I; its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision, formerly known as Division I-A, the highest level of NCAA competition in that sport. The conference is one of the nation’s oldest, predating the founding of the NCAA by a decade, and was one of the first collegiate conferences to sponsor men’s basketball. The first known references to the conference were in December 1916, when Michigan sought to rejoin the conference after a nine-year absence. At the time, the organization was more commonly known as the Western Conference, consisting of Illinois, Michigan, Purdue, and Wisconsin. In April 1907, Michigan was voted to de-emphasize its varsity varsity athletics after World War II. In December 1912, Ohio State was added to the league as the Ohio State Big Ten in December 1912. The First reference to the Big Nine was in 1899, and the conference was again known as Big Nine University of Chicago after the Chicago University of Illinois decided to discontinue its athletics just after the war. In April 1900, Indiana University and Iowa joined the conference to increase the membership to nine schools. Indiana University was turned away in 1911, but both had joined the league again in 1900 and again in 1911. Ohio State turned away both times in both 1900 and 1911, and it was voted out of the conference for failing to adhere to league rules. Notre Dame became an affiliate member in the 2017–18 school year as an affiliate members of the ACC except in football where it will continue to compete as an independent.