Ohio Valley Conference
The Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) is an American college sports conference that plays in the NCAA Division I. In football, the OVC is part of Division I FCS, the lower of two levels of Division I football. The member universities and colleges are in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee. The OVC has its offices in the Nashville suburb of Brentwood, Tennessee.
History
The OVC grew out of talks between officials at three Kentucky schools--Eastern Kentucky, Murray State, and Western Kentucky--in 1941. America's entry into World War II later that year put these talks on hold for several years. Later, in 1948, the three original schools joined with two other Kentucky schools, plus one in Indiana, to form the conference.
It was one of the first conferences with a presence in the South to accept black athletes at historically white-only schools, with Morehead State being the first OVC member to do so in 1958. The OVC was long notable as being the only conference made up of traditionally white schools to have a historically black university (HBCU) as a member, namely Tennessee State. That changed when Hampton and North Carolina A&T left the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference for the Big South Conference, respectively in 2018 and 2021. (Both moved together to the Colonial Athletic Association in 2022.)
The OVC has had major membership changes in recent years. In 2021, it lost founding member Eastern Kentucky, plus Jacksonville State, to the ASUN Conference. A year later, three more members left, with Austin Peay moving to the ASUN, and founding member Murray State and Belmont joining the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC). However, since the MVC does not play football, Murray State played the 2022 football season in the OVC before moving the football team to the Missouri Valley Football Conference in 2023. (The MVFC is separate from, but closely related to, the MVC.) Murray State remained a member in rifle after it otherwise leaves the OVC.
The OVC responded by adding three new members in 2022 and one in 2023. The University of Arkansas at Little Rock, athletically known as Little Rock, joined from the Sun Belt Conference. It does not have a football team. The other new members started transitions from NCAA Division II. Lindenwood University plays football; the University of Southern Indiana does not. In 2023, Western Illinois University joined from the Summit League for almost all of its sports. It kept football in the Missouri Valley Football Conference and men's soccer in the Summit League for the 2023-24 school year, and will move both sports to the OVC in 2024.
In February 2022, the OVC and Big South announced they would merge their football leagues after the 2022 season. The merged entity was later unveiled as the Big South-OVC Football Association, technically an alliance between the two conferences instead of a full merger of the football leagues. The alliance has a single automatic berth in the FCS playoffs. Also, shortly after the 2022 membership changes took effect, the OVC and Horizon League merged their men's tennis leagues under the Horizon's banner.
Members
The OVC has 11 full members. Six of these schools play football in the Big South-OVC alliance; two play football in another conference; and three do not play football at all. All members are public schools except for 2022 arrival Lindenwood.
Associate members
The OVC now has six "associate" members--i.e., schools that play a small number of sports in the conference, usually one. The most recent changes to the associate membership were the departure of Murray State football to the Missouri Valley Football Conference after the 2022 football season and the addition of four associates in July 2023. All four of the new associates joined in the newly sponsored OVC sport of men's soccer, and one of those also joined for men's and women's golf.
Former members
Fourteen schools have been full members, but are no longer in the league. As noted earlier, former full member Murray State remains an OVC associate member.
Former associate members
The OVC has had one prior associate member that left when it folded its only OVC sports team. A second school was an OVC associate in two sports in 2022-23, but now only houses one sport in the OVC.
References
NCAA Division I athletics conferences
1948 establishments in the United States