Power conferences

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The power conferences or the Power Four are the most prominent athletic conferences in college football in the United States. They are part of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I, the highest level of collegiate football in the nation, and are considered the most elite conferences within that tier. Power conferences have provided most of the participants in the College Football Playoff (CFP) and its predecessors, and generally have larger revenue, budgets, and television viewership than other college athletic programs. The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big Ten Conference, Big 12 Conference, and Southeastern Conference (SEC) are currently recognized as power conferences. For decades, the most prominent conferences sent their teams to postseason bowl games, but the season frequently ended with multiple teams claiming the national championship. After the 1990 and 1991 seasons ended with consecutive split championships, several of the most prominent conferences and bowl games formed the Bowl Coalition (1992–1994) and later the Bowl Alliance (1995–1997) to provide a definitive national champion. In 1998, there were the Power Six—the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, SEC, and Pac-12—and the four most prominent bowl games—the Fiesta, Orange, Rose, and Sugar Bowls—formed the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), with conference champions awarded Automatic Qualifying (AQ) status to the bowl games and, provisionally, the National Championship Game. The defection of three Big East members to the ACC after the 2005 conference realignment gradually diminished its stature, and it eventually split into two following a realignment in the early 2010s; at the same time, the BCS was reorganized into the College Football Playoff, and the remaining AQ conferences were collectively referred to as the Power Five. A further realignment in the early 2020s saw the Pac-12 left with only two members after the 2023 season; the...