The Sun Belt Conference is a college athletic conference that has been affiliated with the NCAA's Division I since 1976. Its football teams participate in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the higher of two levels of Division I football competition (formerly known as Division I-A). The Sun Belt has member institutions distributed primarily across the southern United States.
ULM and FAU joined the league as a member in all sports on July 1, 2005. Western Kentucky will join the Sun Belt Conference for football in 2009 after its Board of Regents voted to upgrade the school's football program to Division I FBS.[1]
South Alabama will begin fielding a football team in 2009, with the intention of moving up to full FBS status by 2013.
Organization
The Sun Belt conference office has been headquartered in downtown New Orleans since 2000, after moving from suburban Metairie, Louisiana where it had been based since 1991. Prior to moving to the ?Big Easy? the league was based in Tampa, Florida from 1977-1991. The original conference office was located in Charlotte, North Carolina from 1976-77.
*At least one home game a year is played at Dolphin Stadium in Miami Gardens (home of the NFL Miami Dolphins and NCAA Miami Hurricanes). FAU is constructing an on campus 30,000 seat stadium to open for their 2010 season.
**Florida International University's FIU Stadium is currently undergoing expansions for an increased seating capacity to 45,000. The expansion is to be done in two separate phases, phase one to be finished for the Fall 2008 season and phase two by Fall 2010. The school also used the Miami Orange Bowl as its home stadium for the 2007 season.
***South Alabama will begin a football team in 2009, with its first year of Sun Belt play in 2013.
****Through the 2006 season, Western Kentucky was not a football member of the Sun Belt Conference, as it competed at the Division I FCS (formerly Division I-AA) level in the Gateway Football Conference. The football team is moving up to Division I FBS in 2007 and will join the conference in 2009; by that time, Smith Stadium's capacity will be expanded to around 22,000 seats.
* North Texas won the conference's automatic bowl bid because it won the head-to-head game against Middle Tennessee. Also, North Texas had a losing overall record in 2001 and was not technically bowl-eligible, but the NCAA granted the team an exemption because it had won the conference. This is similar to what is granted to a basketball or baseball team which has a losing overall record but wins its conference tournament. ** Arkansas State won the conference's automatic bowl bid through a three-way tiebreaker. *** Troy won the conference's automatic bowl bid through a tiebreaker by virtue of its head-to-head victory against Middle Tennessee, and Middle Tennessee earned a bid to the Motor City Bowl in Detroit. **** Florida Atlantic won the conference's automatic bowl bid through a tiebreaker by virtue of its head-to-head victory against Troy.
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