ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) ? Central Florida is a step closer to making a move to a new athletics conference after the school's board of trustee voted unanimously Friday to give school President John Hitt the authority to negotiate a contract for its athletics programs to join a new league.
The vote came during a brief meeting Friday following an update about discussions Hitt's has had with officials from a conference he declined to identify. The league could be the Big East, which met with UCF officials recently.
UCF has not yet received an invitation to join another conference. Hitt said he couldn't predict when an invitation might come or what the circumstances of a potential agreement might look like, but said discussions are "progressing rapidly" and that he wanted negotiation power about exit and entrance fees when they do.
"It could be within a matter of days," Hitt said.
Should UCF leave Conference USA for another league, it would have to pay an exit fee of $500,000, in addition to being required to pay its remaining share of television revenue ? about $6.25 million. Hitt said Friday that those financial obligations are not an impediment to UCF changing conferences.
The Big East is looking to add members after recently losing Syracuse, Pittsburgh and TCU. It is considering adding UCF, along with fellow C-USA members SMU and Houston for all sports, and Boise State, Navy and Air Force for football only.
In a similar move to UCF Friday, Houston board of regents voted unanimously Thursday night to give its chancellor and president authority to negotiate a contract to move the Cougars into a more lucrative league.
The biggest draw for UCF moving to the Big East would be that it offers an automatic bid to the Bowl Championship Series in football, something that C-USA does not.
UCF athletics director Keith Tribble said earlier this month that should UCF be approached about switching affiliations that having an automatic tie-in to the BCS in football would be one of the main priorities. School officials also have said moving to any conference would require an all-sports invitation.
Tribble said that he believes UCF's profile is ripe for a move to a bigger league.
"We always tell people in this changing environment is take a look at UCF," Tribble said. "Take a look at what we've accomplished. Take a look at what we believe we can be as a program and as a university. And then we have the facts and figures to back that up."
The Big East currently has six football members committed to the conference beyond this season, and eight schools that do not compete in the league in football, including Notre Dame.
Big East Commissioner John Marinatto said last week that there is no specific timetable for the league to expand, but there has been a lot of activity recently to suggest some changes could occur soon.
The Big East's presidents also unanimously voted last week t to increase the league's withdrawal fee from $5 million to $10 million when an expansion plan is executed. It's a move it hopes will deter recent defections and help it keep its BCS tag when contracts are renegotiated.
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