Wednesday Sports in Brief

Updated Jun. 4, 2020 2:10 a.m. ET

Associated Press

NBA

The NBA has told the National Basketball Players Association that it will present a 22-team plan for restarting the season to the league’s board of governors on Thursday, a person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press.

The teams that will be going to the ESPN Wide World Of Sports complex on the Disney campus near Orlando, Florida, would play eight games to determine playoff seeding starting around July 31 before the postseason begins, according to the person who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity Wednesday because the league has not released its proposal publicly.

The plan, once approved, would have 13 Western Conference teams and nine Eastern Conference teams going to Disney, and the cutoff being that teams must be within six games of a playoff spot at this point. Playoffs would start in August, and the NBA Finals will likely stretch into October, the person said.

—By AP Basketball Writer Tim Reynolds.

BASEBALL

NEW YORK (AP) — Major League Baseball rejected the players’ proposal for a 114-game regular season schedule with no additional salary cuts, and will turn its attention to a shortened slate of perhaps 50 games or fewer. Owners last week proposed an 82-game schedule starting in early July

“We do not have any reason to believe that a negotiated solution for an 82-game season is possible,” Deputy Commissioner Dan Halem wrote in a letter Wednesday to chief union negotiator Bruce Meyer that was obtained by The Associated Press.

MLB’s plan included a sliding scale of pay decreases that would leave players at the $563,500 minimum with 47% of their original salaries and top stars Mike Trout and Gerrit Cole at less than 22% of the $36 million they had been set to earn.

Players insisted they receive the prorated salaries agreed to in a March 26 deal, which would give them 70% pay at 114 games. That agreement called for the sides to “discuss in good faith the economic feasibility of playing games in the absence of spectators.” The union has said no additional cuts are acceptable.

NFL

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Drew Brees was sharply criticized by fellow high-profile athletes, including some of his own teammates, on Wednesday after the Saints quarterback reiterated his opposition to kneeling during the national anthem.

In an interview with Yahoo, Brees was asked to revisit former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s 2016 protest of police brutality against minorities, in which Kaepernick knelt during the national anthem before games.

“I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States,” Brees began, adding that the national anthem reminds him of his grandfathers, who served in the armed forces during World War II. “In many cases, it brings me to tears thinking about all that has been sacrificed, and not just in the military, but for that matter, those throughout the civil rights movements of the ’60s, and all that has been endured by so many people up until this point.”

Critical responses to Brees’ statements appeared on social media from a couple major professional athletes, including the Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James and Saints safety Malcolm Jenkins.

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Denver Broncos coach Vic Fangio is apologizing for suggesting discrimination and racism aren’t problems in the NFL.

“After reflecting on my comments yesterday and listening to the players this morning, I realize what I said regarding racism and discrimination in the NFL was wrong,” Fangio said in an apology posted on the team’s Twitter account Wednesday.

“While I have never personally experienced those terrible things first-hand during my 33 years in the NFL, I understand that many players, coaches and staff have different perspectives,” Fangio added. “I should have been more clear and I am sorry.”

Fangio said he only meant to convey that in his experience, those ills didn’t exist in locker rooms or on the playing field where teams rallied behind common goals.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

STILLWATER, Okla. (AP) — Two more Oklahoma State football players have tested positive for COVID-19 since returning to campus for voluntary workouts, bringing the total to three.

Senior associate athletic director Kevin Klintworth wrote on his Twitter account Wednesday that of the 150 staff, administrators and athletes tested, three athletes had asymptomatic positives.

Linebacker Amen Ogbongbemiga announced Tuesday he tested positive after he attended a protest in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The other two players were not identified.

OSU spokesman Gavin Lang said there would be no additional comment.

SOCCER

Major League Soccer and its players’ union agreed to a six-year labor contract through 2025 that paves the way for a tournament in Florida after the season was suspended by the coronavirus pandemic.

The deal was announced Wednesday following tense talks that led to some players skipping voluntary workouts and the league threatening a lockout.

MLS and the Major League Soccer Players Association agreed Feb. 6 to a five-year labor contract, but the deal had not been ratified when the season was stopped on March 12 after only two matches had been played by each team.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The LA Galaxy will meet with new Serbian winger Aleksandar Katai on Thursday to discuss a series of alarming social media posts by his wife.

Tea Katai made the since-deleted posts on her Instagram story this week, the Galaxy confirmed Wednesday night in a statement that called the posts “racist and violent.”

The team says its meeting with Katai will “determine next steps.”

Tea Katai’s posts included a profane call, written in Serbian, to “kill” protesters. Another called protesters “disgusting cattle,” also in Serbian.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s soccer federation has announced a new professional women’s league that will begin play next year.

Called the WE League, for women’s empowerment, the new organization will initially consist of six to 10 teams and will kick off in the fall of 2021. The league’s round-robin format will include home and away games between each of the teams.

Japan Football Association President Kohzo Tashima said the aim of the league is not just to develop women’s soccer in the nation.

DIVERSITY REPORT

A diversity report for racial and gender hiring across college sports found overall improvement yet still reported grades lagging behind the professional ranks.

Wednesday’s report card from The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at Central Florida assigned an overall C-plus score, a B for racial hiring and a C-plus for gender hiring. The report examined a range of positions including leadership at the NCAA headquarters, conference commissioners and head coaches based on data from the 2018-19 season.

The numeric scores in each category were the highest since researchers revised the grading scale for the 2015-16 report to account for changing national demographics. But lead report author and institute director Richard Lapchick noted in the report that the grades trailed those of professional leagues reviewed in other TIDES studies such as the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer and WNBA.

AUTO RACING

NASCAR is set to return to Nashville, Tennessee, in 2021.

Nashville Superspeedway will hold a Cup race for the first time next season. It ends NASCAR’s decade-long absence from the track.

The Nashville track is owned by Dover Motorsports, Inc. Dover has held Cup race weekends each year since 1969.

Dover will give up one of its dates and move it to Nashville for an expected late June 2021 race weekend. Nashville Superspeedway held Xfinity and Truck events from 2001 until 2011.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — NHRA drag racing will resume its season in July with back-to-back events at Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis with limited spectators allowed.

The events will be run on July 11-12 and July 18-19 and admission offers will be extended to NHRA members and 2020 U.S. Nationals ticket holders.

The revised 2020 schedule will consist of 19 total events . The season will conclude with the championship finale November 13-15 at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona in Southern California. The revised schedule announced Wednesday is subject to change due to COVID-19.

HORSE RACING

A racehorse named for Dr. Anthony Fauci reached the finish line at a safe enough distance from others that would have made his namesake proud.

Fauci the 2-year-old colt finished a distant second to a horse named Prisoner and was well ahead of third-place Indoctrinate in his much-anticipated debut Wednesday at Belmont Park.

Co-owner Phillip Antonacci picked the name Fauci in mid-March after the 79-year-old started doing daily coronavirus briefings from the White House. The Antonacci family, like Fauci, is Italian-American and from Brooklyn.

OBITUARY

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — College Football Hall of Famer Johnny Majors, the coach of Pittsburgh’s 1976 national championship team and a former coach and star player at Tennessee, died Wednesday. He was 85.

Majors died at his home in Knoxville, according to his wife, Mary Lynn Majors. “He spent his last hours doing something he dearly loved: looking out over his cherished Tennessee River,” she said in a statement first given to Sports Radio WNML.

Majors compiled a 185-137-10 record in 29 seasons as a head coach at Iowa State (1968-72), Pitt (1973-76, 1993-96) and Tennessee (1977-92). That followed a standout playing career at Tennessee during which he finished second to Notre Dame’s Paul Hornung in the 1956 Heisman Trophy balloting.

He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1987. Tennessee retired Majors’ No. 45 jersey in 2012.

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