Speaking about NCAA conferences it's necessary to admit that National Collegiate Athletic Association offers a lot of sports for both men and women. This number of sports includes such games as baseball (men), basketball, football (men), softball (women), field hockey (women), cross country, fencing (coeducational), golf, bowling (women), gymnastics, soccer, lacrosse, ice hockey, volleyball, rowing (women's), tennis, rifle (coeducational), water polo, swimming & diving, wrestling (men's), skiing (coeducational), and track & field.
National Collegiate Athletic Association is one of the biggest collegiate athletic organizations on the territory of the United States of America, but it is not single. Another one organization of collegiate athletic is called NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics).
It's a common knowledge that National Collegiate Athletic Association does not hold an emulative tournament for football Division I-A, an actual state of affairs that is controversial enough. Nowadays, the "champion" of football Division I-A is determined by the Bowl Championship Series applying polls series to find out two opponents, which will compete for the championship in the National Championship Game BCS.
Two of the polls are based on people voting: one, which is sponsored by USA Today, of coaches of current Division I-A, another one - a mix of administrators, coaches and former players, former and current media (sponsored and administered by Harris Interactive), while six of the polls are based on computer models. In spite of self-proclaimed Bowl Championship Series authority, Associated Press may still grant the "national champion" title for a team of its own choice.
It's a very interesting fact that the National Collegiate Athletic Association currently awards eighty eight national championships annually: forty one men's, forty four women's, and three championships where women and men compete together (skiing, rifle and fencing).
Let's take a closer look at NCAA conferences. There are a lots of them. Let's begin our NCAA conferences review from the Division 1-A NCAA list of conferences: The big east, Atlantic cost conference, The big 12, The big ten, Mid-American conference, Conference USA, Pacific ten conference, Mountain west conference, South belt conference, Southeastern conference and Western athletic conference. There are twenty NCAA conferences in Division 1, the most famous of them are: Big West conference, Big Sky conference, America east conference, Mod-Continent conference, IVY league, Colonial athletic association, Ohio valley conference, Southland conference and West coast conference.
There are only three NCAA conferences in Division 1-AA football-only: Pioneer football league, Great west football conference, Gateway football conference.
In conclusion, understand that the National Collegiate Athletic Association is one of the biggest and greatest associations in the world. Nevertheless, there are also some other inter-university associations such as British Universities Sports Association and Canadian Inter-university sport for Canada.