WHAT SCHOOL PLAYS IN THE MOST DIVISION I CONFERENCES?

May 08, 2023

Occasionally in our research or graphics making, we come across some unusual conference affiliations. For a variety of reasons - money, Title IX requirements, level of interest - most conferences don’t sponsor a sport that at least some of their members want to field a team in. These teams are left to find another conference that does sponsor that sport, leading to some unexpected combinations. For example, did you know Alabama competes in the Big 12 in women’s rowing or that Kentucky and South Carolina are both members of the Sun Belt for men’s soccer?

Naturally, we wanted to find out what school participates in the most Division I conferences. For the purposes of this article, all conferences listed under Division I on the “List of NCAA Conferences” Wikipedia article are considered to be D1. Some of these conferences do not have divisions within them, so we considered all member schools to be D1 in that sport. Then we visited each conference’s page and counted up primary and affiliate members for each one. Each conference only counted once, but participating in multiple sports within the same conference does not result in multiple points. Wikipedia also lists multiple conferences associated with the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) as separate single-sport conferences, but since they share a governing body and much of the same membership a school could only get credit for on ECAC sport. D1 independent status does not count as a conference affiliation, apologies to Commish’s beloved Aggies of New Mexico State. All conference affiliations are as of the 2022-23 season in their respective sport(s).

It became quickly apparent while tallying this up that the winning strategy is to rack up memberships in single-sport conferences. For example, ULM only has two affiliations (a Sun Belt primary membership and Conference USA for beach volleyball), while Dartmouth has four (Ivy League primary, ECAC for men’s hockey, Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association (EISA), and the New England Intercollegiate Fencing Conference (NEIFC)).

So who has the highest number of conference memberships?  We’ll start at schools with six memberships:

Six-Conference Schools

Harvard

  1. Ivy

  2. ECAC (Hockey)

  3. CWPA (Water Polo)

  4. EISA (Ski)

  5. EIVA (Volleyball)

  6. EIWA (Wrestling)

Sacred Heart

  1. Northeast

  2. MAAC (Women's rowing, Men's Lax)

  3. AHA (Men's Hockey)

  4. NEWHA (Women's Hockey)

  5. EIWA (Wrestling)

  6. NEIFC (Fencing)

Seven-Conference Schools:

Army

  1. Patriot League

  2. AHA (Men's Hockey)

  3. ECAC (Women's Hockey)

  4. EIWA (Wrestling)

  5. GARC (Rifle)

  6. MACFA (Men's Fencing)

  7. NIWFA (Women's Fencing)

Lindenwood

  1. Ohio Valley

  2. ASUN (Lacrosse)

  3. Horizon (Men’s Tennis)

  4. Summit (Swimming & Diving, Men’s Soccer)

  5. CHA (Women’s Hockey)

  6. MIC (Women’s Gymnastics)

  7. MIVA (Volleyball)

At this point, the meta should be clear: be a primary member of a conference with a relatively small athletic footprint, and play a lot of sports that conference doesn’t sponsor. Finding separate single-sport conferences for your men’s and women’s teams is also an easy way to boost your numbers. Army suffers slightly by not having a football membership, which is not the case for our top schools.

EIGHT CONFERENCES:

Air Force

  1. Mountain West

  2. Big 12 (Wrestling)

  3. ASUN (Men’s Lacrosse)

  4. WAC (Men’s Soccer, Men’s Swimming & Diving

  5. Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (Fencing, Men’s & Women’s Gymnastics)

  6. Atlantic Hockey Association (Men’s Hockey)

  7. Patriot Rifle Conference

  8. Western Water Polo Association

And the winner, coming in unopposed with NINE conference ties, should be no surprise given the position of the other service academies on this list.

NINE CONFERENCES:

Navy:

  1. Patriot League

  2. AAC (Football)

  3. Collegiate Water Polo Association

  4. Eastern College Athletic Association

  5. Eastern Independent Wrestling Association

  6. Great American Rifle Conference

  7. Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Fencing Association (Men’s)

  8. National Intercollegiate Women’s Fencing Association

  9. Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference

Congratulations to the Naval Academy for having the highest number of potential different pieces of conference hardware in their trophy case. Thank you for reading and check out our new Patreon and store. With enough of your support, Jordan may be able to found the Lone Star Korfball Association of his dreams.