WASHINGTON — Players’ union leader DeMaurice Smith indicated Wednesday that NFL owners have lowered from $1 billion to $800 million the amount of additional revenues they want to take off the top of their $9 billion business.
He also was clear he considers the lower figure still too high, because the league is not offering to turn over enough financial information.
Leaving the 14th day of mediated talks — and with the labor contract set to expire Friday — Smith called the information the NFL proposed to provide “utterly meaningless.”
“Just to be absolutely clear, the information that was offered wasn’t what we asked for,” Smith said, “and, according to our investment bankers and advisers, they told us that information would be utterly meaningless in determining whether to write an $800 million check to the National Football League” in each year of a new CBA.
In Minneapolis, meanwhile, the NFLPA asked the federal judge who ruled in its favor in a case involving TV contracts to release information the NFL wants kept confidential. U.S. District Court judge David Doty sided with the players last week, saying the league illegally set up $4 billion in payments from networks — money the union argued was collected to fund a lockout.
Miller ends ski season
ROME — Pulled in two directions, Bode Miller again opted for fatherhood over ski racing.
The U.S. Ski Team announced Miller has cut short his World Cup season for the third consecutive year, raising questions about whether he might retire. The former two-time World Cup champion decided to skip the final two stops on this year’s circuit to spend more time with his daughter in San Diego.
Patton won’t return to Huskies
DEKALB, Ill. — Northern Illinois coach Ricardo Patton will not be back for a fifth season with the Huskies, who finished the season 9-21 after Tuesday’s 74-54 loss to Bowling Green in the first round of the Mid-American Conference Tournament. Under the former Colorado coach, the Huskies went 35-83.
Footnotes.
One day after saying goodbye to teammate Wes Leonard at his funeral, the Fennville boys basketball team defeated Bangor 79-50 to improve to 22-0 and advance to the Michigan Class C district finals.
• New Orleans Hornets guard Chris Paul remains sidelined with concussion-like symptons.
• Bulls forward Carlos Boozer had X-rays on his left ankle that were negative after he left Chicago’s victory over Charlotte after a scary fall from a flagrant foul by Bobcats center Kwame Brown.
• Guard Baron Davis left the Cleveland Cavaliers and returned to Los Angeles to be with his family following the death of his grandmother, Lela “Madea” Nicholson.
• Serena Williams still has blood clots in her lung but hopes to return to tennis this summer after recovering from a pulmonary embolism.
• NASCAR driver Greg Biffle praised his pilots for successfully landing his plane after a mechanical failure caused the right main landing gear to fail and the wing to hit the runway as the plan came to a stop at Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Ky.
The Associated Press
