The speculation over the past two months about UCF joining the Big East Conference was finally confirmed on Wednesday night in a teleconference with Big East officials announcing the new memberships.
UCF joins the Big East just one month after their athletic director, Keith Tribble, resigned amid NCAA violations.
Big East Commissioner John Marinatto announced the addition of UCF to the Big East for all sports in 2013.
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“Today we are extremely proud to announce the addition of five new members to the Big East,” Marinatto said. “We are delighted to formally welcome the University of Central Florida, the University of Houston, and Southern Methodist University as our full members, and Boise State University and San Diego State University as football-playing members.”
In the past, the Big East has been criticized for its instability. This is the fourth time that the conference has reinvented itself since its founding in 1979.
“Since the creation of the Big East back in 1979, and throughout its 32-year evolution, the Big East conference has had a record of reinventing itself,” Marinatto said. “Today I am pleased to tell you that we have taken yet another bold and creative step in our history.”
With the addition of these five new schools, the Big East conference will gain more media exposure and spread to more fans around the nation.
“With these five new members our conference will continue to have by far the single largest media footprint in intercollegiate athletics, expanding literally from coast to coast in football to all the major regions in between,” Marinatto said.
UCF President John Hitt expressed his gratitude to Marinatto and other commissioners for the invitation to join the conference.
“We are honored to join the new Big East and look forward to adding to the conference’s tradition of academic and athletic success,” Hitt said. “Our thanks go to Commissioner Marinatto, President Genshaft and our fellow university presidents for the professionalism, dedication and enthusiasm that has led us to this fine day.”
Hitt is excited for the opportunities that this move will bring to the UCF athletes and the athletic program.
“Joining the Big East, provides opportunities for our student athletes in all sports to compete on the largest national stage,” Hitt said.
Marinatto will be looking to capitalize off having teams in every time zone of the U.S. The Big East already has ambitious plans for their television contract for the 2013 season.
“Television ranks are a very important factor in our overall goals and expansion, and we believe that the appropriate levels of revenue derived from television is very important to our respective members.”
This could lead to a major revenue increase for the UCF program. For football, it’s looking like the new Big East football conference will have two six-team divisions with the leaders in each division to face off at the end of the season in the Big East Championship game.
This is not final, but Marinatto will be working toward this for the 2013 season.
“I think we are going to have to have all our athletic directors included in a room in order to determine the best model but that is the general model that we’ve discussed,” Marinatto said.
UCF fans can look forward to watching their teams play against the highest level of competition each and every week during the 2013 season. Also, more UCF games will be televised nationally.
