Franchise system
In North America, where sports usually operate on a franchise system rather than a league system, a division is a group of teams within a league which is organized along geographical lines rather than competitive success. Teams based in cities that are in a particular region of the continent are grouped together in the same division. For instance, in Major League Baseball, both the American and National Leagues have East, Central, and West divisions; the teams in each division are mostly (but not always) located in the eastern, central, and western sections of North America respectively. In a franchise system, teams are not promoted or relegated as are teams in a league system. All teams in the league (and by extension, the divisions of the league) are at the same competitive level and remain so year after year.
North American professional sports leagues often construct their season schedules in a way such that teams in a division play matches against each other more often than other teams in the league. This not only has the effect of reducing travel costs, but also creates exciting rivalries between the teams in the division. Moreover, the top teams in a division qualify for the postseason playoff tournament that crowns the league champion, which heightens the rivalries between the teams in a division.
Geographically-based divisions can become skewed if an expansion team joins the league or if one of the franchises within a division moves to another city, necessitating a shuffling or realignment of the teams in a division. Furthermore, the results of the realignment may not always reflect geographical realities. For instance, in 1995, the Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League (NFL) moved to St. Louis, Missouri and became the St. Louis Rams. The team retained its place in the NFC West division despite the fact that St. Louis is further east than Dallas, Texas, home of the Dallas Cowboys. Although Dallas is located in the south-central United States, the Cowboys are a member of the NFC East division due to their long-standing rivalries with the New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, and Washington Commanders, all of whom are located on the Eastern seaboard.
U.S. college sports
In U.S. college sports, a "division" has a meaning different from either sense listed above, although somewhat closer to that of the league system.
The major governing bodies for college sports, the NCAA and NAIA, divide their member schools into large competitive groups. These groups are much larger than divisions in either the league or franchise system—for example, the NCAA's highest competitive level, Division I, has more than 300 member schools. The vast majority of teams are members of conferences, smaller groupings that usually have between 6 and 14 members. Conference champions, plus selected other teams, compete in national championship tournaments (with the exception of schools in the highest level of NCAA (American) football, which have never had an NCAA-recognized national championship).
As an example, the NCAA is split into three divisions:
- Division I – Usually the largest and most prominent schools, with the largest athletic budgets. All Division I member schools are allowed to award athletic scholarships to students, although some schools and conferences voluntarily choose not to award athletic scholarships in some or all sports (most notably the Ivy League, which prohibits such scholarships in all sports).
- Division II – Generally smaller schools that do not choose to take on the sometimes-massive expense of Division I athletics. The NCAA allows D-II schools to award scholarships, but places much more stringent limits on the amount of athletic aid awarded than at the D-I level.
- Division III – Schools, usually but not always small institutions, at which intercollegiate sports is treated more as a regular student activity. In keeping with this philosophy, the NCAA prohibits Division III schools from awarding athletic scholarships.
"Division" within conferences
The term division is also used in US college sports to indicate the groupings of members of a given conference. However, this usage is more recent. The first conference to divide its teams into divisions was the Southeastern Conference which, upon expanding to 12 members in 1992, divided into Eastern and Western divisions. Other conferences have undergone similar expansion and division. The usage in the section above is still maintained. For example, the Georgia Bulldogs are in Division I, but are also in the Eastern Division of the Southeastern Conference.
The Big Ten Conference is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives in 1896, it predates the founding of its regulating organization, the NCAA. It is based in the Chicago area in Rosemont, Illinois. For many decades the conference consisted of 10 prominent universities. As of 2014, it consists of 14 member institutions and 2 affiliate institutions, with 2 new member institutions scheduled to join in 2024. The conference competes in the NCAA Division I and its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, the highest level of NCAA competition in that sport.
The Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I. The A-10's member schools are located in states mostly on the United States Eastern Seaboard, as well as some in the Midwest: Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri as well as in the District of Columbia. Although some of its members are state-funded, half of its membership is made up of private, Catholic institutions. Despite the name, there are 15 full-time members, and three affiliate members that participate in women's field hockey and men's lacrosse. The current commissioner is Bernadette McGlade, who began her tenure in 2008.
The Patriot League is a collegiate athletic conference comprising private institutions of higher education and two United States service academies based in the Northeastern United States. Barring the Ivy League, it is the most selective group of higher education institutions in the NCAA, and has a very high student-athlete graduation rate for both the NCAA graduation success rate and the federal graduation rate.
In North American sports, realignment or releaguing refers to a major change in the competitive structure of one or more existing leagues. The mechanics differ somewhat between amateur and professional sports.
NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athletic powers, with large budgets, more elaborate facilities and more athletic scholarships than Divisions II and III as well as many smaller schools committed to the highest level of intercollegiate competition.
The ASUN Conference, formerly the Atlantic Sun Conference, is a collegiate athletic conference operating mostly in the Southeastern United States. The league participates at the NCAA Division I level, and began sponsoring football at the Division I FCS level in 2022. Originally established as the Trans America Athletic Conference (TAAC) in 1978, it was renamed as the Atlantic Sun Conference in 2001, and then rebranded as the ASUN Conference in 2016. The conference headquarters are located in Atlanta.
NCAA Division III (D-III) is a division of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States. D-III consists of athletic programs at colleges and universities that choose not to offer athletic scholarships to their student-athletes.
NCAA Division II (D-II) is an intermediate-level division of competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It offers an alternative to both the larger and better-funded Division I and to the scholarship-free environment offered in Division III.
The National Football Conference – Northern Division or NFC North is one of the four divisions of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). Nicknamed the "Black and Blue Division" for the rough and tough rivalry games between the teams, it currently has four members: the Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, and Minnesota Vikings, with the latter three based within most definitions of the Upper Midwest. The NFC North was previously known as the NFC Central from 1970 to 2001. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were previously members, from 1977, one year after they joined the league as an expansion team, until 2002 when they moved to the NFC South. The division was created in 1967 as the Central Division of the NFL's Western Conference and existed for three seasons before the AFL–NFL merger. After the merger, it was renamed the NFC Central and retained that name until the NFL split into eight divisions in 2002. The four current division teams have been together in the same division or conference since the Vikings joined the league in 1961. The Bears, Lions and Packers have been in the same division or conference since the NFL began a conference format in 1933. Largely because the four teams have played each other at least twice a year, with the exception of the strike-shortened 1982 season, for more than 60 years, the entire division is considered one very large rivalry.
The National Football Conference – Eastern Division or NFC East is one of the four divisions of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). It currently has four members: the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, and the Washington Commanders.
An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams, playing competitively against each other in a sports league. In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller divisions, with the best teams competing at successively higher levels. Conferences often, but not always, include teams from a common geographic region.
The Pittsburgh Panthers, commonly also referred to as the Pitt Panthers, are the athletic teams representing the University of Pittsburgh, although the term is colloquially used to refer to other aspects of the university such as alumni, faculty, and students. Pitt fields 19 university-sponsored varsity teams at the highest level of competitive collegiate athletics in the United States: the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) for American football.
Athletes and sports teams from North Carolina compete across an array of professional and amateur levels of competition, along with athletes who compete at the World and Olympic levels in their respective sport. Major league professional teams based in North Carolina include teams that compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL), National Hockey League (NHL), Major League Soccer (MLS), and National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). The state is also home to NASCAR Cup Series races. At the collegiate and university level, there are several North Carolina schools in various conferences across an array of divisions. North Carolina also has many minor league baseball teams. There are also a number of indoor football, indoor soccer, minor league basketball, and minor league ice hockey teams based throughout the state.
College lacrosse is played by student-athletes at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. In both countries, men's field lacrosse and women's lacrosse are played at both the varsity and club levels. College lacrosse in Canada is sponsored by the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association (CUFLA) and Maritime University Field Lacrosse League (MUFLL), while in the United States, varsity men's and women's lacrosse is governed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). There are also university lacrosse programs in the United Kingdom sponsored by British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) and programs in Japan.
The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As of the 2023 season, there are 10 conferences and 133 schools in FBS.
Texas is home of several national sports league franchises among other professional sports, being the second most populated U.S. state. Since the state is located in the South Central United States, most teams are part of the Central / South or West league divisions, with the notable exception of the NFL Dallas Cowboys, which is an NFC East franchise.
The United States ice hockey structure includes elements from traditional American scholastic high school and college athletics, affiliated and independent minor leagues, the unique "major junior" leagues, as well as other various amateur junior and youth hockey leagues. The hierarchy of the ice hockey league system forms a pyramid with many regional minor and development leagues making up the base of the pyramid and a linear progression through the professional minor leagues leading to the National Hockey League at the top of the pyramid.
The Cowboys–Steelers rivalry is a rivalry in the NFL. The Cowboys currently lead the all-time series 17–16. The two teams met in the Super Bowl three times, the most of any two teams. As the Cowboys are in the NFC and the Steelers are in the AFC, they usually only meet once every four regular seasons and occasionally in the preseason. CBS Sports ranked this rivalry No. 2 of the best NFL rivalries of the 1970s.
This article is a timeline of the National Football League (NFL). It tracks the history of each of the league's 32 current franchises from the early days of the league, through its merger with the American Football League (AFL). The history of franchises that began as independent teams, or as members of the Ohio League, New York Pro Football League, and other defunct leagues are shown as well.
