National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics

The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) is an athletic association that organizes college and university-level athletic programs among smaller institutions, primarily across the United States but also outside the US. The NAIA has two members in Canada and at one point had another in the Bahamas, which made it the only international intercollegiate athletic association in North America until 2009. As of October 2013, the NAIA reports having 255 member institutions.

The NAIA, whose headquarters is in Kansas City, Missouri, sponsors 23 national championships. The CBS Sports Network, formerly called CSTV, serves as the national media outlet for the NAIA. On December 19, 2014, ESPNU, the college sports arm of the ESPN family of networks, began carrying the NAIA National Football Championship which was played in Daytona Beach, Florida, between Southern Oregon University and Marian University.

History

In 1937, Dr. James Naismith and local leaders staged the first National College Basketball Tournament at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City--one year before the first National Invitation Tournament and two years before the first NCAA Tournament. The goal of the tournament was to establish a forum for small colleges and universities to determine a national basketball champion. The original eight-team tournament expanded to 32 teams in 1938. On March 10, 1940, the National Association for Intercollegiate Basketball (NAIB) was formed in Kansas City, Missouri.