The Board of Athletics was established in September 1962 to promote and strengthen general athletic activities and athletic teams. The Board sponsors five athletic teams (soccer, basketball, baseball, ice hockey and rugby) and supports their activities by overseeing recruitment, providing accommodations and other related matters. As a result, the teams have produced a substantial number of excellent athletes who have excelled in domestic and international competitions. Yonsei’s athletes have performed at the highest level in athletics and contributed to the development of modern athletics in Korea.

In colonial times, Yonsei's sports activities imbued students with a sense of national unity and spirit against foreign rule. Since 1956, the annual Yonsei-Korea University Friendship Games have served as the most hotly contested collegiate rivalry in Korea. Athletics remain the pride and love of all Yonsei students, alumni and faculty.

Besides the annual Yonsei-Korea Games, which involves soccer, basketball, baseball, ice hockey and rugby competitions, Yonsei supports athletes that engage in golf, short track, figure skating and horseback riding, as well as purely amateur clubs, such as judo, taekwondo, kendo, tennis, crew, skiing, fencing, football and weight lifting.

Yonsei University hosts a range of athletic events to facilitate students' physical health and friendship.

With the longest tradition and the greatest significance in college athletics, the Yonsei-Korea Friendship Games provide an opportunity for the students, the faculty and alumni to openly display their universities' spirit, skill and heritage. To strengthen the bond between the two universities, the annual games consist of matches in soccer, basketball, baseball, ice hockey and rugby. Participating athletes must be currently registered as full-time students.

To promote friendship with foreign university students through athletics, Yonsei University has held athletic exchange games of basketball and soccer with Japan's Ritsumeikan and Keio Universities, and with Russia's Moscow University, since the establishment of friendly relations with those universities in 1990.

Teams from all departments and colleges build friendship, increase physical strength and show team spirit through the intramural competition for the annual Presidential Cup.