The big three is the nickname of the three most powerful sports clubs in Portugal. The football (soccer) teams of F.C. Porto, Sporting Clube de Portugal and S.L.

The Big Three is an historical term used in the United States to refer to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. The phrase Big Three originated in the 1880s, when these three colleges dominated college footballSynnott, Marsha G. http://www.aafla.org/SportsLibrary/JSH/JSH1976/JSH0302/jsh0302i.pdf The "Big Three" and the Harvard-Princeton Football Break, 1926-1934; see also Harvard-Yale-Princeton.. High schools' college admissions counselors and colleges' admissions guides sometimes use the initialism HYP to refer to these colleges.