Sponsoring conference championships in 33 men's and women's sports, and averaging more than 35 varsity teams at each school, the Ivy League provides intercollegiate athletic opportunities for more men and women than any other conference in the country. All eight Ivy schools are among the "top 20" of NCAA Division I schools in number of sports offered for both men and women.

The most diverse intercollegiate competition in the country for both men and women is also among the best. In recent years, the Ivy League has been synonymous with national excellence in men's and women's soccer, lacrosse, rowing, fencing and squash, and individual Ivy athletes have regularly excelled as well in football, track and field, wrestling and swimming. Ivy teams have enjoyed significant success in the opening rounds of the NCAA Division I basketball championships.

This successful competition in Division I national athletics is achieved by approaching athletics as a key part of the student's regular undergraduate experience: with rigorous academic standards, the nation's highest four-year graduation rates (the same as those for non-athletes), and without athletics scholarships. Ivy athletic programs receive multi-million-dollar institutional support as part of each institution’s overall academic programs, independent of win-loss or competitive records and together with extensive programs of intramural and recreational athletics.

Since 2000 alone, the Ivy League...

• Produced NCAA individual champions in fencing, women’s swimming and diving, men’s indoor track & field, men’s outdoor track and field, women’s indoor track and field, women’s outdoor track and field and wrestling while earning NCAA team championships in fencing, men’s lacrosse, women’s lacrosse and women’s rowing. The League has also captured national champions in the non-NCAA sports of men’s squash and men’s rowing. All eight Ivy League schools have had at least one NCAA champion – individual or team – during this span.

• Amassed more than 100 All-Americans each year.

• Averaged more than a dozen Academic All-Americans each year, including an all-time high of 18 in 2006-07.

• Averaged more than a dozen Academic All-Americans (including an all-time high of 18 in 2006-07).

• Posted far and away the best record in Division I, across all sports and conferences, in the first two annual compilations of the NCAA's Academic Progress Rate, posted in the spring of 2007 and 2008.

• Had 162 competitors at the four Olympic Games (2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006). Those 162 have collected 67 medals, including 23 gold. The League boasted 42 athletes and took home 14 medals (five gold, seven silver and two bronze) in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.

• Hosted the first ESPN College GameDay football show to draw more than 1.5 million households (2002).

• Sent numerous athletes into the professional ranks — the Women’s United Soccer Association (including Dartmouth’s Kristin Luckenbill of the 2002 Founders Cup champion Carolina Courage), National Football League (including Brown’s Sean Morey of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Harvard’s Isaiah Kacyvenski of the Seattle Seahawks, team captains for Super Bowl XL, and Cornell’s Kevin Boothe, Brown’s Zak DeOssie and Penn’s Jim Finn of the Super Bowl XLII champion New York Giants), Major League Lacrosse (including Princeton’s Ryan Boyle and Matt Striebel of the three-time champion Philadelphia Barrage), National Hockey League (including Princeton’s George Parros of the 2007 Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks) and Major League Baseball (including Princeton’s Chris Young of the San Diego Padres, 2007 National League All-Star).

• Became the first conference to “sweep” the four major NCAA Honors in the same year (2006) — Columbia’s Robert Kraft claiming the Theodore Roosevelt Award; Princeton’s John Doar the Inspirational Award; Yale’s Susan Wellington a Silver Anniversary Award; and Brown’s Nick Hartigan a Top VIII Award.

• Became the second conference with three of the six NCAA Silver Anniversary Award winners in the same year (2007) — Dartmouth's Gail Koziara Boudreaux, Brown's Steve Jordan, and Yale's Patricia Melton.

• Finished eighth among the 31 Division I conferences in the 2007-08 Directors’ Cup presented annually by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA), United States Sports Academy and USA Today.