ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on college sports decision-making at the conference and college levels in the National College Athletic Association in the United States. A college sporting conference is a group of colleges who collectively agree to abide by the same (conference) rules, compete against each other and share revenues. Depending on the size of the conference, schools in a conference will compete against other schools in that conference either each year or every other year. Several colleges have chosen to maintain an “independent status” rather than being a full member of a conference. Often these colleges have an independent status in one or more sports and affiliate with a conference in other sports. The general pattern in many conferences is the “approximate” equal allocation of revenues among member colleges.
