Motivation is an internal force or desire that drives an individual to meet personal and organizational goals. Motivation consists of two categories, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Generally, motivation is an important psychological factor that is often associated with athletes’ sports involvement. The purpose of this study was to identify the different types of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) from a gender perspective. The study sample consisted of 63 Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) athletes (n = 63; male = 30, female = 33) who participated in the MASUM Sports Carnival. The instrument used to measure athlete’s motivation is the Sport Motivation Scale (SMS-28) questionnaire, which includes intrinsic motivation subscales (to know, to accomplish, to experience stimulation), extrinsic (external regulation, introjected regulation, identify regulation) and amotivation (demotivation). The results showed that UKM athletes were more intrinsically motivated (M = 4.43 ± 0.38) than extrinsically motivated (M = 4.19 ± 0.44). However, there were no significant differences in the dimensions of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation between gender (p> .05). Overall, this study shows that intrinsic motivation is the key factor of UKM athletes sports involvement