<p>It may be a sports league, but that’s really only one product of the tie that binds the schools (at least seven of the eight; Cornell is both a historical and geographic outlier). The other seven Ivy League schools are the seven oldest private universities in America, and along with William & Mary and Rutgers (both public), seven of the nine universities in existence in Colonial America. They’ve been associated with one another for hundreds of years, grew athletic programs to prominence at roughly the same time, and then de-emphasized athletics around the same time once big-time athletics outgrew the Ivies’ mission. That’s why they’re all in the same athletic conference - schools with similar histories, values, and academic standards sought one another out as appropriate sports rivals. The Ivies’ affiliation begat the sports league - not the other way around.</p>