College athletics

Boise State decides to remain

in Mountain West Conference

Boise State will remain in the Mountain West in all sports and thus will not be part of the Big East, school and conference officials announced Monday.

Boise State was scheduled to join the Big East in football and the Big West in most other sports in July, but instead the Broncos will stay in the Mountain West. Boise State joined the conference in 2011.

As part of its agreement to remain in the Mountain West, the rights to Boise State's home football games will be sold apart from the Mountain West's television contract.

Boise State and other football teams in the Mountain West who appear on national television (ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox) will be paid a bonus of $300,000 per game, with an additional $200,000 for a Saturday game, according to Boise State officials.

"I have had the utmost trust that the university would make the right decision in what is best for Bronco football and all our sports at Boise State," football coach Chris Petersen said. "This innovative proposal to get football the maximum exposure on national television will be a tremendous boost to our program as we continue to grow the Bronco brand."

Boise State must pay the Big East a $5 million exit fee, but it can be negotiated to a lesser amount, school officials said. The Mountain West will help pay whatever exit fee the Broncos owe, commissioner Craig Thompson said.

"We are disappointed that Boise State has decided not to join the Big East Conference," commissioner Mike Aresco said.

There is speculation San Diego State, which is to join the Big East as a football-only member, could be the next school to reverse course.

NHL

Union has a counterproposal

NHL and players' association officials will start the new year where they ended the old one — at the bargaining table.

The sides got together Monday for the first time since Dec. 13, and the union brought along a counterproposal in response to the 288-page contract offer the league presented Thursday. There were some discussions between the negotiators inside the league's New York headquarters and some time spent apart in internal caucuses.

"This discussion was for us to respond and for them to ask questions and us to explain a number of the points we made," union executive director Donald Fehr said. "We covered the range of subjects that their document included."

After several hours passed, NHL officials said they would be going over the players' new contract offer Monday night and would get back to the union Tuesday morning.

Commissioner Gary Bettman said he expected negotiations would restart Tuesday afternoon.

"There was an opportunity for the players' association to highlight the areas that they thought we should focus on based on their response," Bettman said. "That's something we've now got to look at very closely, in addition to the myriad other issues."

Monday was the 107th day of the lockout.

U.S. junior team advances

The United States routed Slovakia 9-3 in Ufa, Russia, to advance to the quarterfinals of the world junior championships.

The Americans will play the Czech Republic on Wednesday.

Baseball

Tejada says he, Royals have deal

Miguel Tejada, a six-time All-Star, has reached a minor-league deal with the Kansas City Royals and said he is ready to return to the majors.

The 38-year-old infielder has a one-year contract that will be worth $1.1 million if he makes the big leagues. There is an additional $400,000 in performance bonuses. He last played in the majors in 2011 with San Francisco, hitting .239 with four home runs and driving in 26 runs in 91 games.

Tejada, a .285 hitter in the majors, has been playing for the Aguilas Cibaenas in the Dominican Republic Winter League. He says he lost 15 pounds during the summer.

The Royals signed outfielder Endy Chavez, 34, to a minor-league contract and invited him to big-league spring training.

Chavez hit .203 with two home runs and 12 RBI in 64 games for the Baltimore Orioles last year.

Elsewhere

• ESPN anchor Hannah Storm will return to the air Tuesday, three weeks after she was seriously burned in a propane gas-grill accident at her home in Connecticut.

Storm suffered second-degree burns on her chest and hands, and first-degree burns to her face and neck. She lost her eyebrows and eyelashes, and roughly half her hair.

Storm, 50, will host ABC's telecast of the Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif., on Tuesday. Her left hand will be bandaged and she said viewers might notice a difference in her hair texture where extensions have been added.

• Russian Maria Sharapova, the second-ranked tennis player in the world, has injured her right collarbone and decided to withdraw from the Brisbane International as a precaution ahead of the Australian Open later this month.

Sharapova felt pain while practicing before her opening match and said, "Just have to make a smart move here."

Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki, the top-ranked player in the world at the end of 2010 and 2011, lost 2-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-1) to Kazakhstan qualifier Ksenia Pervak in the first round.

No. 9 Samantha Stosur of Australia lost 7-6 (7-4), 7-5 to No. 41 Sofia Arvidsson of Sweden in another first-round match.

• Olympian Jonathan Kuck of Champaign, Ill., claimed the men's allround title and fellow Olympian Maria Lamb of River Falls, Wis., took the women's title on the final day of the U.S. long-track speedskating championships in Kearns, Utah.

• The North Carolina Court of Appeals upheld a judge's order unsealing documents in a bitter divorce case involving Brian France, NASCAR chairman and chief executive officer.

Seattle Times news services