The organization is divided into two main conferences: the MAC Commonwealth and the MAC Freedom. A third conference, named the Middle Atlantic Conference (singular), draws members from both the Commonwealth and Freedom conferences and sponsors sports that only a certain set of members participate in, such as track & field and cross country.
During its history, the organization has had at least 50 different members associated with it. The conference had as many as 37 members at one time in the late 1950s. A major reduction in the league occurred in 1974 after the NCAA created Divisions I, II, and III. At that time, 11 members left to form the Division I East Coast Conference and by 1976, the MAC became fully associated with Division III. An additional 11 members left in 1992 to form the Centennial Conference; the football programs for eight of those schools had already left in 1981. In 1999, the current corporation formed with its three conferences: MAC Commonwealth, MAC Freedom, and Middle Atlantic.[1]
Alvernia University, Misericordia University, and Eastern University, all from the Pennsylvania Athletic Conference, accepted membership in the MAC Freedom and started participation in the 2008–09 school year.[1] Starting in the 2009–10 school year, Alvernia switched from the MAC Freedom to the MAC Commonwealth, thereby giving the Commonwealth and Freedom leagues the same number of members.
Stevenson University and Hood College accepted invitations to join the MAC and MAC Commonwealth starting with the 2012–13, expanding the conference to 18 members.[2]Elizabethtown College moved to the Landmark Conference for 2014–15. In May 2018, Manhattanville College announced that they would leave the MAC Freedom Conference and return to the Skyline Conference for the 2019–20 academic year. Manhattanville was a charter member of the Skyline before leaving to join the MAC in 2007.[3] Three months later, the MAC announced that Stevens Institute of Technology, which had left the conference in 1978, would return in 2019–20 and replace Manhattanville in the MAC Freedom.[4] In April 2019, the MAC announced that York College of Pennsylvania would join the MAC Commonwealth in 2020–21.[5]
In May 2019, the MAC announced it would realign the Commonwealth and Freedom conferences into two equally-sized leagues effective with York's arrival in 2020. At that time, Arcadia and Lycoming moved from the MAC Commonwealth to the MAC Freedom, while Eastern made the opposite move.[6]
In 1958, the MAC began sponsoring football. The football conference essentially operated as three separate conferences with the larger schools (Bucknell, Delaware, Gettysburg, Lafayette, Lehigh, Muhlenberg, Rutgers, and Temple) playing a round-robin schedule in the "University Division," and the smaller schools being split into the "College Division - North" (Albright, Dickinson, Juniata, Lebanon Valley, Lycoming, Moravian, Susquehanna, Wagner, and Wilkes) and the "College Division - South" (Drexel, Haverford, Johns Hopkins, Pennsylvania Military, Swarthmore, Ursinus, and Western Maryland) each playing a separate round-robin schedule. Although the upper division of the conference (which later included Drexel, La Salle, and Saint Joseph's) competed at the Division I (then known as the University Division) level in other sports, only Rutgers was considered a University Division football school. Following the 1969 season, the upper level of MAC football was disbanded as Temple dropped out to upgrade their football schedule. Rutgers had previously dropped out of the MAC for all sports and a five-team football league was not desirable. The lower division continued as MAC football, but Bucknell, Delaware, Gettysburg, Lafayette, and Lehigh operated as football independents for the rest of their tenure with the league. Numerous other MAC schools competed in other football leagues throughout most of the league's history.
In 1983, the Centennial Football League was formed by eight MAC members. Eventually, those eight schools and two others broke apart from the MAC for all sports, founding the Centennial Conference in 1991. Since then, all league members that sponsor football have competed in the MAC Football Conference.
Member schools
30km 20miles
Neumann
Wilkes
York
Widener
Stevenson
Stevens
Misericordia
Messiah
Lebanon Valley
King's
Hood
Farleigh Dickinson
Eastern
DeSales
Delaware Valley
Arcadia
Alvernia
Albright
Locations of current MAC members. MAC Commonwealth MAC Freedom Affiliates
^Represents the calendar year when fall sports competition begins.
^Date when the school joined the overall MAC; this does not necessarily reflect when that school joined MAC Freedom.
^Conference records prior to 1946 are incomplete so years given are the earliest known that were officially recorded.[1]
^Stevens is officially listed as having been a MAC member in 1946, the earliest year for which complete conference records exist. However, because it was represented at the original formation meeting of the all-sports MAC in 1922, it is often regarded as a founding member. Stevens left the MAC after the 1977–78 school year; before re-joining back, effective in the 2019–20 school year.[1]
Member teams currently compete in 27 sports, 14 men's and 13 women's.[10] The most recently added sports are men's and women's ice hockey and men's volleyball, all added for 2017–18. The MAC now sponsors all NCAA Division III sports except women's rowing.[11]
The Middle Atlantic Conference combines schools from both the MAC Commonwealth and MAC Freedom and is currently used for cross country, football, women's golf, ice hockey, track & field (indoor / outdoor), swimming, men's volleyball, and wrestling.[11] The MAC officially sponsored men's and women's ice hockey for many year but it wasn't until the addition of Neumann and Wilkes as affiliate members that the conference received an automatic qualifier for the NCAA Tournament. As a result the first MAC ice hockey tournaments will take place in 2025.[9] Previously, the MAC used the regular-season results of UCHC games involving all MAC members to extrapolate a MAC champion (the same model used by the Ivy League, which has a similar relationship with ECAC Hockey).
