The Big Ten Conference is comprised of world-class academic institutions who share a common mission of research, graduate, professional and undergraduate teaching and public service. The conference's 100-plus years of history, strong tradition of competitive intercollegiate athletic programs, vast and passionate alumni base, and consistent leadership in innovations position the Big Ten and its entire community firmly on the Big Stage.

The Big Ten has sustained a comprehensive set of shared practices and policies that enforce the priority of academics and emphasize the values of integrity, fairness and competitiveness in all aspects of its student-athletes' lives, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that each individual has the opportunity to live a Big Life.

• Big Ten universities provide more than $112 million in direct financial aid to more than 8,700 men and women student-athletes who compete for 25 championships, 12 for men and 13 for women.
• Conference institutions sponsor broad-based athletic programs with 275 teams. Other than the Ivy League, the Big Ten has the most broad-based athletic programs in the United States.

• Big Ten universities are members of the nation's only conference whose constituency is entirely composed of institutions that are members of the AAU, a prestigious association of major academic and research institutions in the United States and Canada.
• Big Ten universities are also members of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), a consortium of the Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago. These 12 world-class research institutions have advanced their academic missions, generated unique opportunities for students and faculty and served the common good by sharing their expertise, leveraging campus resources and collaborating on innovative programs.
• The Big Ten leads all conferences with the highest number of ranked graduate school programs among the top 25 according to U.S. News and World Report in 2010. The Big Ten ranks first with 24 top-25 programs in the fields of law, medical (research and primary care), business and engineering.
• Big Ten student-athletes graduated at 70.6 percent, compared with the average for all Division I student-athletes of 64 percent, based on the most recent federal graduation rate average for 1999-2002 freshman classes. In addition, the Big Ten's latest Graduation Success rate is 82 percent, compared to the Division I average of 79 percent.

• The Big Ten's media agreements with CBS Sports, ABC/ESPN, the Big Ten Network and CBS College Sports Network provide the conference with its greatest television exposure ever.
• In 2006, the Big Ten created the first national conference-owned television network devoted to the athletic and academic programs of a single conference. The Big Ten Network launched on Aug. 30, 2007, and became the first new network in cable or satellite television history to reach 30 million homes in its first 30 days. The Big Ten Network is now available to an estimated 75 million households through agreements with more than 300 cable, satellite and telco affiliates in all 50 states and Canada. The network is available on cable in 19 of the nation's 20 largest media markets.
• Since the current media agreements began in 2007-08, every home football and men's basketball game has been produced while women's basketball has received more coverage than any other conference.
• The Big Ten's new media agreements have resulted in the production and distribution of more than 850 events nationally on an annual basis, compared to 300 events in the final year of the previous agreements.

• Big Ten fans are some of the nation's most supportive, with more than 8.9 million patrons attending conference home contests during the 2009-10 seasons for football, men's and women's basketball and volleyball alone.
• Over the last three decades, the conference has ranked either No. 1 or No. 2 nationally in football, men's basketball, volleyball and wrestling attendance and among the top three in women's basketball.
• The Big Ten leads all conferences with more than 4.4 million living alumni and over 300,000 undergraduate students attending Big Ten universities.

• During the 2009-10 season, the Big Ten claimed six team national championships, including titles for Iowa wrestling, Michigan men's gymnastics, Ohio State synchronized swimming, Penn State fencing and women's volleyball and Purdue women's golf.
• The Big Ten leads all conferences with national titles in 13 different NCAA-sponsored championships since 2000-01. Over that time period, the Big Ten has produced championships in cross country, fencing, field hockey, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, lacrosse, soccer, softball, tennis, track and field, volleyball and wrestling.

• Since 1992, the Big Ten has shown a strong commitment to increasing opportunities for women in sports and exposure of women's athletics by establishing a multi-phased gender equity program. In that time, the Big Ten has created in excess of 2,000 new opportunities for women student-athletes and established 28 new women's teams, while expanding the number of women's championships to 13 by adding field hockey, soccer and rowing. In addition, the Big Ten Network will become the first national network to commit to event equality during the 2010-11 academic year, with intent to produce and distribute a substantially equal number of men's and women's events across all platforms.
• As part of the gender equity action plan, the Big Ten was the first conference to voluntarily adopt male/female participation goals for student-athletes in 1992. The Big Ten initiated a five-year plan for conference members to commit to a 60 percent/40 percent male-to-female student-athlete participation ratio. This was achieved as a conference by 1997 and 2000 was the first year that all institutions individually met this goal. During the 2009-10 year, all institutions were in compliance and the conference averaged a 52/48 male-to-female participation ratio.

• In 1989, the Big Ten created a community outreach program--SCORE (Success Comes Out of Reading Everyday), which partners the conference with two Chicago elementary schools to improve reading performances. What began with one school, two grade levels and five classrooms has grown in its 21st year to include grades kindergarten through eighth, encompassing all classes and students at Melody School and Louis Armstrong School.
• Following the national tragedy on Sept. 11, 2001, the Big Ten, through its intercollegiate athletic department revenues, pledged a $1 million scholarship contribution to assist the families of those affected by the terrorist attacks. The conference's donation is called the "Big Ten 9-11 Scholarship Fund", and the $1 million contribution will be drawn from conference reserves which are generated as a result of football and men's basketball participation in NCAA, bowl and regular-season television opportunities.
• The Big Ten has established numerous community programs surrounding the Big Ten Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments, including the Wayne Duke Postgraduate Award Scholarship, the Big Ten Career Fair, the Hoops Day 5K and a partnership with the Pink Ribbon Connection, a local breast cancer organization.