Power Five conferences

The Power Five conferences (or P5) are the five most prominent athletic conferences in college football in the United States. They are part of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of NCAA Division I, the highest level of collegiate football in the nation, and are considered the most elite conferences within that tier. The Power Five conferences have provided nearly all of the participants in the College Football Playoff since its inception, and generally have larger revenue, budgets, and television viewership than other college athletic programs.

"Power Five" redirects here. For other uses, see Power five (disambiguation).

The Power Five conferences are the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big Ten Conference, Big 12 Conference, Pac-12 Conference, and Southeastern Conference (SEC). The FBS consists of the Power Five, five other conferences known as the Group of Five (G5), and a small number of independent schools. The term Power Five is not defined by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), but the Power Five conferences are identified individually under NCAA rules as "autonomy conferences," which grants them some independence from standard NCAA rules to provide additional resources for the benefit of student-athletes.

Each of the power conferences existed for decades before the establishment of the College Football Playoff, with the oldest power conference, the Big Ten, founded in 1896. Prior to the establishment of the College Football Playoff in 2014, the Power Five conferences, as well as the original incarnation of the Big East Conference, received an automatic berth in one of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) bowl games. The power conferences also compete in numerous sports outside of football, but are not necessarily the most prominent conferences in each individual sport. For example, in men's college basketball, the modern Big East Conference is also generally considered to be a power conference, with the media referring to it and the rest of the Power Five as the "Power Six."

Amid the broader early-2020s NCAA conference realignment, it remains to be seen if the Pac-12 Conference remains part of the Power Five, as ten of that conference's 12 current schools plan to move to other Power Five conferences before the 2024–25 school year.

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