Notre Dame’s men’s athletic teams win the Capital One Cup

Don’t ask about the Director’s Cup

At the ESPY’s, fans across the country were told that the best men’s athletic program in the country belongs to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. For its efforts, Notre Dame was awarded the Capital One Cup.

This is the second time the Irish men have won the Capital One Cup as the first time was for the 2013-2014 seasons.

The Cup

The Capital One Cup is a multi-sport award given to a school to acknowledge athletic success across all sports. Several sports programs from higher-education institutions across the United States are pitted against each other, acquiring points throughout the school year based on how individual sports teams finish in national championships. Sports are divided into two groups based on popularity and pool of competition, with Group B scoring three times the number of points of Group A. There are separate cups for men’s and women’s sports.

How the Cup is scored

Unlike the NACDA Directors’ Cup which scores each sport equally, the Capital One Cup employs a two-tiered scoring system in which higher profile sports (“Group B”) are valued more highly than others (“Group A”). Schools’ performances in the Group B sports earn three times as many points as those in Group A. This valuing of certain high-profile sports over smaller, less popular sports has drawn criticism from college sports administrators.^[2] In its history, the Capital One Cup has revised its scoring structure on several occasions to adjust such factors as the number of tiers, the inclusion/exclusion of certain sports, and the tier designation of the included sports. With the last revision (2020–21), only 10 sports were given the high-value “Group B” designation.

The 2021-2022 Results