As University of Hawaii athletics director Craig Angelos alluded to last week, the University of Hawaii is currently in talks to join the Mountain West Conference as a full-time member.
Angelos confirmed the ongoing talks to KHON2 on Thursday after it was reported by Action Network's Brett McMurphy that Hawaii was discussing full-time membership as a conference.
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Hawaii is currently a football-only member of the Mountain West and primarily a member of the Big West Conference. Meanwhile, the school's swimming and diving and track and field teams compete in the MPSF.
Angelos says travel subsidies are being discussed but not a deal breaker.
Hawaii currently pays visiting conference football teams $150,000 if it is in the Pacific Time Zone, as well as $175,000 for teams from the Mountain Time Zone. It also shares travel costs with visiting Big West teams for its other sports.
It would cost the University of Hawaii $750,000 to exit the Big West.
Were Hawaii to join the Mountain West Conference full time, some sports such as men's volleyball are not offered by the conference. In that scenario, the Big West presidents could vote to allow UH to stay with an affiliate fee of $25,000 per team per year. Another possibility is UH approaching the MPSF, which it was a member of until the Big West offered men's volleyball beginning in 2018.
UTEP officially joined the Mountain West on Thursday, giving the conference seven full-time members. Were Hawaii to join, the school would become the eighth.