Current season, competition or edition: 2016 NCAA Division I FBS football season |
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Sport | American football |
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Founded | 1978 |
No. of teams | 128 |
Country | United States |
Most recent champion(s) |
Clemson Tigers |
TV partner(s) | Various |
Official website | www |
The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the top level of college football in the United States. The FBS is the more competitive subdivision of NCAA Division I, which itself consists of the largest and most competitive schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As of the next college football season in 2017, there are 10 conferences and 130 schools in FBS. Despite the popularity of the professional National Football League, college football is very popular throughout much of the United States, and the top schools generate tens of millions of dollars in yearly revenue. Top FBS teams draw tens of thousands of fans to games, and the ten largest American stadiums by capacity all host FBS teams. College athletes are not paid, but colleges are allowed to provide players with non-monetary compensation such as athletic scholarships that provide for tuition, housing, and books.
The FBS is the highest level of college football in the United States, and FBS players make up the vast majority of the players picked in the NFL Draft. For every sport but football, the NCAA divides schools into three major divisions: NCAA Division I, NCAA Division II, and NCAA Division III. However, in football, Division I is further divided into two sub-divisions: the Bowl Subdivision, abbreviated as the FBS, and the Championship Subdivision, abbreviated as the FCS. Divisions are themselves further divided up into conferences, which are groupings of schools that play each other in contention for a conference championship. The FBS currently has ten conferences, which are often divided into the "Power Five conferences" and the less prominent "Group of Five."