The Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) is a collegiate athletic conference which operates in the Midwestern and Southeastern United States. It participates in Division I of the NCAA, with its football programs competing in the Football Championship Subdivision, the lower of two levels of Division I football competition. The OVC has 11 members, six of which (plus two football-only members) compete in football in the conference.
History Primary source: The Ohio Valley Conference can trace its roots to 1941 when Murray State athletic director Roy Stewart, Eastern Kentucky athletic director Charles "Turkey" Hughes, and Western Kentucky public relations director Kelly Thompson first formulated the idea of establishing a regional athletics conference. The plan was put on hold due to World War II, but it was resurrected after the conclusion of the war. In 1948, the three schools joined with Louisville, Morehead State, and Evansville to form the Ohio Valley Conference. While many collegiate conferences are struggling today with the question of whether their policies and rules should be determined by the athletic departments or by the institutional heads, from the very beginning, the OVC has been run by the presidents of its member schools.
Historically, the OVC was a pioneer in racial desegregation, with Morehead State signing the conference's first Black athlete, Marshall Banks, in 1958. The rest of the OVC soon followed in Morehead State's wake. From 1986 to 2018, the OVC was unique among NCAA Division I conferences in that it included one historically Black university, Tennessee State University, in a conference that otherwise consists of institutions that are not traditionally Black. During this period, every other HBCU in NCAA Division I belonged to either the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference or Southwestern Athletic Conference. That distinction changed when both Hampton University and North Carolina A&T State University joined the Big South Conference in 2018 and 2021, respectively; both schools have since joined the Coastal Athletic Association.
The OVC has also been a leader in advancement of sports opportunities for women. The conference began adding championship competitions for women in 1977 several years after the AIAW began sponsoring national championships for women, but seven years before the NCAA was ready to move into the field. Since 2009, the OVC has been led by Commissioner Beth DeBauche, one of only six female commissioners for the thirty-two Division I conferences.
The close geographic proximity of the schools paired with athletic rivalries led to problems with fan behavior, and the conference leadership struggled with controlling the issue for many years. When the national debate on the problem reached its apex in the mid-1990s, the OVC unveiled the national first of its kind "Sportsmanship Statement" in 1995, stating the conference's policy on, "... principles of fair play, ethical conduct and respect for one's opponent." Since then, the OVC has also introduced individual, team (for each sport), and institutional sportsmanship awards.
Founded by six schools, the expansions of 2007 and 2011 brought the Ohio Valley Conference membership to twelve schools, the most in its history. The OVC dropped to 10 members after the 2020–21 school year, when founding member Eastern Kentucky and Jacksonville State left for the Atlantic Sun Conference (then branded as the ASUN Conference; "ASUN" is still the official abbreviation). At that time, the OVC was searching for teams to replace both.
The OVC lost three more members after the 2021–22 school year. Football-sponsoring Austin Peay left for the ASUN, which ultimately launched its own football league in 2022. Non-football Belmont left for the Missouri Valley Conference. Another football school, founding member Murray State, left for the MVC. When announcing its move to the MVC, Murray State announced that it was seeking membership in the football-only Missouri Valley Football Conference, and also announced that it would continue to house its rifle team in the OVC. In a separate statement, Murray State's president indicated that the football team would remain in the OVC in the 2022 season, ensuring that the OVC would retain its automatic bid to the FCS playoffs in that season and giving the league more time to add new football members. Murray State would eventually be accepted by the MVFC effective in 2023.
Also in July 2022, the OVC added two non-football members in the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, athletically known as Little Rock, and the University of Southern Indiana, which started a transition from NCAA Division II, plus a new football-sponsoring member in Lindenwood University, also transitioning from D-II.
According to a report from Matt Brown of the Extra Points college sports blog, the OVC expected to lose Murray State, and was considering multiple expansion candidates, with Southern Indiana among them. Other schools named by Brown's sources as possible candidates were FCS programs Arkansas–Pine Bluff and Western Illinois, plus potential Division II upgraders Grand Valley State, Hillsdale, and Lincoln Memorial.
On February 22, 2022, the conference announced its intent to combine its football membership with the Big South Conference beginning in 2023 and operate as the OVC–Big South Football Association. The alliance follows the model that the ASUN and Western Athletic Conference used in 2021 and 2022 before merging their football leagues in 2023 as the United Athletic Conference. This alliance effectively ended on June 18, 2026, when the OVC announced it would return to the OVC name and branding for its football-playing members and take in Charleston Southern and Gardner–Webb as affiliate members.
Shortly after the 2022 membership changes took effect, the OVC and the Horizon League jointly announced that they would merge their men's tennis leagues under the Horizon banner, effective immediately. All five OVC members that sponsored men's tennis became Horizon affiliates in that sport.
On March 28, 2023, the OVC announced it was adding men's soccer as its 19th championship sport. The four OVC members sponsoring the sport in other conferences were joined by Chicago State University, Houston Christian University, University of the Incarnate Word, and Liberty University. Chicago State was also announced as an incoming men's and women's golf associate on that day. Chicago State's OVC teams left the conference at the end of the 2023–24 school year when the university joined the Northeast Conference, which sponsors all sports that CSU housed in the OVC.
On May 12, 2023, it was announced that Western Illinois University would join the OVC from the Summit League in most non-football sports beginning for the 2023 season. Western Illinois football, which was then a member of the Missouri Valley Football Conference, played the 2023 season in that league before joining the university's other sports in the OVC for the 2024 season. Western later announced its men's soccer team would also play the 2023 season in its former all-sports home of the Summit League before joining the OVC in 2024.
OVC Digital Network In August 2012, the OVC announced that it had launched the OVC Digital Network as a replacement for and improvement over the conference's former efforts to provide streaming video coverage of many athletic events that had been in place since 2006. This website carried live, student-produced coverage of most conference games and some non-conference games in baseball, men's and women's basketball, football, soccer, softball, and volleyball as well as some coaches' shows, special presentations, and archived game-casts available for later viewing.
In its first two years, the network provided well over 600,000 viewings of streamed live video of more than 1,400 events.
In the 2018–19 school year, the coverage previously carried on the OVC Digital Network was switched over to ESPN+.
Member schools Full members Institution Location Founded Type Enrollment Endowment Nickname Joined Colors Eastern Illinois University Charleston, Illinois 1895 Public 8,107 $87.3 Panthers 1996 St. Charles, Missouri 1827 Nonsectarian 7,288 $143.4 Lions 2022 Morehead State University Morehead, Kentucky 1887 Public 8,618 $71 Eagles 1948 Southeast Missouri State University Cape Girardeau, Missouri 1873 Public 9,686 $84.2 Redhawks 1991 Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Edwardsville, Illinois 1957 Public 12,045 $27.4 Cougars 2008 Evansville, Indiana 1965 Public 9,282 $103 ScreamingEagles 2022 Tennessee State University Nashville, Tennessee 1912 Public 8,198 $91.1 Tigers &Lady Tigers 1986 University of Tennessee at Martin Martin, Tennessee 1927 Public 6,941 $51 Skyhawks 1992 Western Illinois University Macomb, Illinois 1899 Public 5,337 $63.6 Leathernecks 2023
Notes
Affiliate members Years listed in this table are calendar years. For schools that play only spring sports (such as beach volleyball) in the OVC, the calendar year of arrival precedes the first season of competition.
Institution Location Founded Type Enrollment Nickname Joined Colors OVCsport(s) Primaryconference Bryant University Smithfield, Rhode Island 1863 Nonsectarian 3,751 Bulldogs 2024 Men's golf America East (AmEast) 2024 Women's golf 2024 Women's tennis Charleston Southern University North Charleston, South Carolina 1964 SouthernBaptist 3,414 Buccaneers 2026 Football Big South (BSC) Gardner–Webb University Boiling Springs, North Carolina 1905 SouthernBaptist 3,594 Runnin'Bulldogs 2026 Football Big South (BSC) Houston Christian University Houston, Texas 1960 Baptist 2,567 Huskies 2023 Men's soccer Southland (SLC) University of the Incarnate Word San Antonio, Texas 1881 Catholic 9,366 Cardinals 2023 Men's soccer Southland (SLC) Murray State University Murray, Kentucky 1922 Public 10,495 Racers 2022 Rifle Missouri Valley (MVC) Tennessee Technological University Cookeville, Tennessee 1915 Public 9,902 Golden Eagles 2026 Beach volleyball Southern (SoCon) University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Chattanooga, Tennessee 1886 Public 11,388 Mocs 2019 Beach volleyball Southern (SoCon) University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Edinburg, Texas 2013 Public 32,419 Vaqueros 2026 Men's soccer Southland (SLC)
Notes
Former full members