What are College Athletics?

College athletics are sports competitions that are played between students at different universities or colleges. In the United States, most sports between four-year colleges are governed by either the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) or the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), and sports for two-year colleges are governed by the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA). The most common intercollegiate sports in the U.S. include American football, basketball, track and field, soccer, wrestling, tennis, baseball, softball and swimming, and the participants in those sports are considered to be elite athletes in their respective sport. For students who are not elite athletes or who do not compete in intercollegiate athletics, most colleges also offer club sports and intramural sports.

Club teams compete at a less competitive level than those at the highest level. Although these clubs compete against other colleges, they aren’t sanctioned by their institutions and often don’t receive the same funding — if they get any — as the top-tier teams. The positive for joining club teams is that they are open to all students, regardless of athletic ability, and give more students a chance to participate in college athletics. Many colleges also offer intramural sports, in which students play in leagues within the institution. There can be a wider variety of sports offered at the club and intramural levels than those offered at the intercollegiate level.

In the U.S., college athletics that are governed by the NCAA are broken up into three divisions. Division I generally is the most competitive and most popular of the three divisions. College athletics at this level include a majority of the bigger, more well-known and competitive sports programs in the country. Smaller schools normally participate in college athletics at the intermediate Division II level or the smaller Division III level, which doesn’t offer athletic scholarships. The NAIA and NJCAA also have divisions to separate institutions, usually by their sizes.

The average college in the U.S. usually participates in about 20 intercollegiate sports during the school year. Some of the lesser known college sports include fencing, rifle, squash, skiing and water polo. Football and men’s basketball are the most popular college sports in the U.S. Both sports are heavily televised in the U.S. and other countries, especially during their respective postseasons.