Wednesday 4:00pm ET....Latest News....Nine-Year Gain

• NFL Owners Approve Nine-Year Extensions Of Network TV Deals

• Earthquakes Win Approval From San Jose For New Soccer Stadium

• Ian Ritchie Leaves All England Club To Become Rugby Union CEO

• LOCOG Launching Secondary Ticket Exchange For '12 Games

The Starting Five....

The most-read stories today on SportsBusinessDaily.com:

1) NBCUniversal President & CEO Steve Burke Tops SBJ's "50 Most Influential" List

2) Virginia Tech Among High-Profile Schools Struggling To Sell Bowl Game Tickets

3) Sources Say Chris Paul May Pursue Legal Action Against NBA Over Rejected Trade

4) MLB's New CBA Includes Changes To Rules Governing Video Replay, Player Conduct

5) Dialing It Up: Sprint To Announce Four-Year Sponsorship Deal With NBA

The Daily's Hot Reads....

ESPNLA.com's Ramona Shelburne writes of the Clippers' improvement efforts: "The most important thing the Clippers have done right is simply accept and embrace who they are, much like Oklahoma City and Portland have done. A team with as much baggage and bad blood as the Clippers carry with them every day can't spend its way into relevance" ( ESPNLA.com ).

In his weekly segment for NPR, SI's Frank Deford writes of end-zone celebrations, "Football players prance and preen, and stomp and strut, and even put on extended little mime routines. … But, hey, purists, get over it. … Rude end zone choreography is just part of the game , like busty cheerleaders, and concussions, and tailgating" ( NPR.org ).

Also:

• Japan's Women's World Cup win was one of year's big stories.

• Some bowl games are duds, but better than TV alternatives.

• Division 1 sanction from U.S. Soccer clears up WPS' future a bit.

• How Tim Tebow differs from David Robinson in expressing religiosity.

See the Hot Reads section for more sports business-related links.

Headliners....

Here are tonight’s headline guests on the following talk shows:

Notes & Quotes From This Day In SBD History....

2001

“If I wasn't in a Yankee uniform I'd probably say, yeah, it's unfair” -- Yankees manager Joe Torre , on some seeing the team's signing of free agent Jason Giambi to a seven-year, $120M as the perfect representation of the disparity in MLB's economic landscape .