NFL talks break off; team owners to meet

''This has turned into a tremendous game of chicken," said a management source. ''The richest owners thought they had some middle ground everyone would be thrilled with. They presented it. They weren't [thrilled]."

According to an NFC owner, however, all major issues have been agreed to except the ones that count the most: what percentage of the total gross revenue will be used to establish the salary cap and how the owners will divide the growing pot of local revenue among 32 franchises that do not share equally in it even though under a new deal they'll be charged equally for it when the salary cap is increased.

''How are the 20 middle-class teams, not to mention the low-income teams, going to agree on what percentage of total gross revenues are to be used to establish a new cap when they don't know where the money is coming from?" said a ''middle class" team owner. ''If total revenues are used to establish the cap and the local revenues aren't divided equally, we're using a much larger share of our income to pay player costs than a team like the Cowboys. How's that fair?"

The difference in local revenue generated can be as much as $100 million between a top-grossing team like the Redskins and a lower-rung team like the Jaguars.

The nine teams with the most local revenue argue that some teams do little to maximize that income, so why should more efficient teams be penalized? The other side argues that those owners are minimizing the value of the league itself, which was here before they bought in and will be here when they cash out. They claim owners such as Jerry Jones in Dallas act as if they alone created those burgeoning local revenue streams, as if they had nothing to do with the value of the league brand itself.

Both sides have a point. The problem is, neither side has an agreement with the union, which is insisting it won't settle until it not only gets 60 percent of total gross revenue put into the salary cap but also knows how the local revenue streams will be split among the teams.