The number of student-athletes participating in NCAA championship sports in 2024/25 climbed to 554,298, an all-time high, according to the NCAA Sports Sponsorship and Participation Rates Report. This is an increase of 15,368 from the 2023/24 academic year.
For the first time since 1982, the data found that Division I participant counts in NCAA sports are over 200,000 (202,353 for championship sports; 204,255 when combining with emerging sports).
Division III had a championship sport participant count of 210,878, and Division II championship sport participants totaled 141,067 in the 2024/25 academic year.
Sponsorship and participation in emerging sports increased by over 20 percent in 2024/25, with 6,992 athletes participating across three divisions.
In the 2024/25 academic year, schools across all three divisions sponsored 19,928 teams in NCAA championship sports — an all-time high — and 62 more than in the 2023/24 academic year.
Division I schools added 87 sponsored programs, bringing the total to 6,750 in championship sports. Counting both championship and emerging sports, Division I schools sponsored 6,812 NCAA sports in the 2024/25 academic year, in which 204,255 student-athletes participated, an increase over the 198,483 student-athletes who participated in championships and emerging sports at the Division I level in 2023/24.
Division II schools sponsored 5,021 championship sport teams, and Division III saw 8,157 championship sport teams compete.
The 2025/26 season will include two additional NCAA championships. The inaugural National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Championships will take place on March 6-7, with 111 teams competing across all three divisions. The first National Collegiate Women’s Fencing Championships will be held from March 19 to 22.
Previously, the fencing championships were a combined event where a school’s men’s and women’s results were totaled together to determine one NCAA champion. This year, there will be a women’s national championship team and a men’s national championship team.
“The NCAA sports sponsorship and participation rates show that opportunities for student-athletes continue to increase,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said. “With the addition of women’s wrestling and fencing championships, it offers more student-athletes the chance to experience competition at the highest levels of their collegiate athletics careers.”
To read the full report from the NCAA, go here.
Image courtesy NCAA
