Intercollegiate sports team champions

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The first tier of intercollegiate sports in the United States includes sports that are sanctioned by one of the collegiate sport governing bodies. The major sanctioning organization is the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Before mid-1981, women's top-tier intercollegiate sports were solely governed by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). Smaller colleges are governed by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). Two-year colleges are governed by the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) in most of the country, except for the unaffiliated California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) and Northwest Athletic Conference (NWAC).

The second tier consists of competition between student clubs from different colleges, not organized by and therefore not formally representing the institutions or their faculties. This tier is also considered to be "intercollegiate" sports. Many of these sports have governing bodies that operate only at the collegiate level, such as the NCRHA. Other sports are governed by their national governing body, for example, USA Ultimate. College sports originated as student activities.

Intercollegiate Team Champions of Non-NCAA and Non-AIAW Sports in the United States:

• The championships below were bestowed by the governing bodies of specific collegiate sports in years when the sport lacked official varsity status in the NCAA (which many still lack) or in the AIAW (and the DGWS that preceded it).
• Women's rugby and equestrian are currently on the NCAA list of "Emerging Sports."^[1][2]
• Some sports (particularly women's sports) championships that are currently sanctioned by the NCAA were previously administered by a single-sport governing body (e.g., rifle, women's ice hockey, women's water polo).
• At some colleges, some of these sports operate at a club level outside of any athletic department. On the other hand, some teams have been accorded varsity status within their schools' athletic programs. Generally, there is no strict separation during competition, but there are exceptions (e.g., Varsity Equestrian since 2006, as it seeks official NCAA status).
• This list is reserved for champions of sports in which the NCAA did not also recognize a champion in a given year. Thus, non-varsity and/or club-level champions are excluded for sports that had a contemporary NCAA champion (e.g., men's ice hockey, alpine skiing) or other collegiate varsity-level champion (e.g., IRA rowing).
• Two exceptions are (1) women's fencing (the NCAA has not offered a women-only team championship since 1989) and (2) women's bowling (the long-established US Bowling Congress championship has co-eminence).