The Summit League, or The Summit, is an NCAA Division I intercollegiate athletic conference with its membership mostly located in the Midwestern United States, from Minnesota in the east, to the Dakotas, Nebraska and Colorado to the West, and Missouri and Oklahoma to the South. Founded as the Association of Mid-Continent Universities in 1982, it rebranded as the Mid-Continent Conference in 1989, then again as the Summit League on June 1, 2007. The league headquarters are in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
The membership currently consists of nine full members plus five associate members. The most recent change in the core conference membership is the departure of two longtime members, Western Illinois University and the University of Denver. Western Illinois was the last remaining charter member of the original conference membership, and they left the conference completely by 2023 and Denver left in 2026. WIU left for the Ohio Valley Conference and Denver left for the West Coast Conference. Other recent core changes include the 2021 arrival of the University of St. Thomas, which began an unprecedented transition from NCAA Division III to Division I. A year earlier, the University of Missouri–Kansas City returned as a full member after a seven-year absence with the new athletic identity of the Kansas City Roos, while Purdue University Fort Wayne left for the Horizon League. A total of 32 schools have been full members in the league's history.
The Summit does not sponsor football, but five of its members play the sport in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), and since 2025 the Summit has had a formal relationship with the single-sport Missouri Valley Football Conference, the football home of four of those five schools at the time.
History
1980s: Early days and foundation The conference can trace its roots back to 1978, when the Mid-Continent Athletic Association was founded as a football-only conference playing in Division II at the time. Its inaugural members were the University of Akron, Eastern Illinois University, University of Northern Iowa, Northern Michigan University, Western Illinois University, and Youngstown State University; Wayne State University had also expressed interest in joining, but ultimately never did. Akron left after the 1979 season, while Northern Michigan and Youngstown State left the following year; they were replaced by Southwest Missouri State (now known as Missouri State University) in 1981. The 1981 season also saw the conference as a whole move from Division II to Division I-AA; this would be the conference's final season under the name of the Mid-Continent Athletic Association.
The new association was officially created on June 18, 1982, at the O'Hare Hilton Hotel in Chicago, Illinois as the Association of Mid-Continent Universities (or AMCU or AMCU-8, pronounced Am-cue), which it was known as until 1989.http://www.thespectrum.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060309/SPORTS/603090335/1006 Covering all men's sports now in addition to football, the new conference consisted of current MCAA members Eastern Illinois, Northern Iowa, Southwest Missouri State, and Western Illinois, along with non-football sponsoring Cleveland State University, University of Illinois Chicago, Valparaiso University and University of Wisconsin–Green Bay. The conference continued to sponsor football at the Division I-AA level, now under the new AMCU name, from 1982 until 1984, when the football sponsoring members of the Missouri Valley Conference joined with the football sponsoring members of the AMCU to form the beginnings of what is now the Missouri Valley Football Conference; current members University of North Dakota, North Dakota State University, University of South Dakota, and South Dakota State University continue to house their FCS football programs there to this day.
1990s: Changes and the addition of women's sports The conference saw its first changes in the early 1990s. Southwest Missouri State departed for membership in the Missouri Valley Conference as the University of Akron and Northern Illinois University joined in 1990. Then Wright State University joined in 1991 as Northern Iowa followed Southwest Missouri State to the MVC.
Major changes came to the conference in 1992. First, Akron left for the Mid-American Conference (MAC) and another Ohio school, Youngstown State University, replaced it. More significantly, the Mid-Continent added women's sports by absorbing the North Star Conference (NSC), a women's-only league whose final seven members were in the Mid-Continent. All of the final NSC members except for Akron moved their women's sports into the Mid-Continent. At the same time, Eastern Illinois and Western Illinois moved their women's sports into the Mid-Continent when their former women's sports home, the Gateway Conference, merged into the Missouri Valley Conference. The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee joined the Mid-Continent a year later.
In 1994, charter members Cleveland State, UIC and UWGB, as well as newer members Northern Illinois, Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and Wright State left the conference to join the Midwestern Collegiate Conference, now known as the Horizon League.
The Mid-Continent absorbed Central Connecticut State University, Chicago State University, Northeastern Illinois University, the University at Buffalo, and Troy State University (now Troy University) from the collapsed East Coast Conference in response. None of these institutions remain in the league.
The University of Missouri–Kansas City, formerly an independent, also joined the Mid-Continent Conference in 1994.
Eastern Illinois moved to the Ohio Valley Conference in 1996, reducing membership to nine programs. Troy State departed for the Trans America Athletic Conference while Central Connecticut State joined the Northeast Conference in 1997. Buffalo joined the Mid-American Conference in 1998 while Northeastern Illinois ceased intercollegiate athletics at that time. Oral Roberts University and Southern Utah University replaced the former pair while Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI; its athletic program is now IU Indy) and Oakland University moved into the latter duo's spots a year later.
2000s: Renewed expansion Youngstown State switched to the Horizon League in 2001, and Centenary College replaced it in 2003. Chicago State University announced in the spring of 2006 that it would withdraw from the conference to compete as an independent starting in the 2006–07 school year. Charter member Valparaiso then moved to the Horizon in 2007.
Conference expansion was discussed at length at the Mid-Continent Conference annual Presidents Council meeting in 2006, and Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW, now Purdue Fort Wayne), North Dakota State, and South Dakota State were approved for site visits. On August 30, 2006, IPFW accepted an invitation to join the Mid-Continent Conference as a full member starting July 1, 2007.Press Release. IPFW accepts invitation to join Mid-Continent Conference , Mid-Continent Conference, August 30, 2006. Both North Dakota State and South Dakota State also accepted invitations to join the conference the next day.Press Release. North Dakota State University accepts invitation to join Mid-Continent Conference , Mid-Continent Conference, August 31, 2006.Press Release. South Dakota State University accepts invitation to join Mid-Continent Conference , Mid-Continent Conference, August 31, 2006.
2010s: Transition The Summit League continued its renewed expansion push with the admission of the University of South Dakota. The Coyotes began conference play in the 2011–12 academic year and become eligible for all championships the following season. Centenary College subsequently announced that it would leave the Summit League following the 2010–2011 campaign.
The University of North Dakota had also been openly rumored to have been courted by the Summit League, but controversy over the Fighting Sioux nickname in all likelihood prevented UND's admission at that time. Expectations that UND would join the Summit League came to an end on November 1, 2010, when North Dakota instead accepted an invitation to join the Big Sky Conference. The University of South Dakota entered into very brief negotiations to join the Big Sky as well, rather than continuing their plans to join the Summit. However, South Dakota chose instead to remain with the more compact Summit League (along with other Dakota schools, NDSU and SDSU). As the University of Nebraska Omaha began the transition to Division I athletics in all sports, it joined the Summit League on July 1, 2012. With the departures of Centenary to Division III at the end of the 2010–11 athletic year, and Oral Roberts (Southland Conference) and Southern Utah (Big Sky Conference) for other Division I conferences at the end of the 2011–12 athletic year, the Summit League continued with nine institutions, all within the Midwest geographical region.
The conference unveiled the University of Denver (DU) as its tenth member on November 27, 2012, and the Pioneers joined in July 2013. While Denver is slightly outside The Summit's current Midwestern base, the city's status as a major air hub seemingly minimized travel issues for the other members. With Denver among the eight of ten Western Athletic Conference (WAC) members switching to other conferences, that league searched for new members. UMKC announced on February 7, 2013, that it would be one of six schools joining the WAC for the 2013–14 season, dropping The Summit League back to nine member schools. Membership fell to eight schools on May 7, 2013, when Oakland announced that it was joining the Horizon League. Eight of the nine then-current Horizon League programs were former Summit League members with Oakland's move (the Horizon has since added two more members that were never in The Summit League, Northern Kentucky and Robert Morris, as well as another former Summit member in Purdue Fort Wayne).
In December 2013, The Summit League office announced that Oral Roberts University would return to the conference in all sports, effective July 1, 2014.
The next changes to the conference's core membership were announced in 2017. First, on January 26, North Dakota, which had resolved its controversy by selecting the new nickname Fighting Hawks, unveiled as a new member beginning in 2018. Then, on June 28, IUPUI announced it would leave the conference to join the Horizon League effective July 1, 2017.
2020s: Associate membership growth and declining full-time membership