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By MATTHEW FUTTERMAN

The National Football League descended Friday into turmoil as negotiations between owners and players broke off, setting up a potentially lengthy court battle that could have serious consequences for both the league and the sports business in general.

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NFL players union executive director DeMaurice Smith, wearing hat, shown arriving for Friday’s negotiations.

After spending seven-plus hours negotiating in Washington, D.C., in a 17th day of mediation, leaders of the NFL and the players union said late Friday afternoon that talks had stalled and blamed the other side for the meltdown.

Shortly thereafter the union filed paperwork to decertify and 10 players, including stars Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, filed an antitrust lawsuit against the league. The suit seeks to prevent the owners from locking out the players. But the league locked out players as of midnight Saturday.

“Significant differences remain,” said DeMaurice Smith, the union’s executive director.

Sports Labor Disputes

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Take a look back at some of the disputes that have upset play in major-league sports.

“We worked hard,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who dismissed the players’ litigation. “Ultimately this is going to be negotiated.”

The league said Saturday that it was calling on the union to return to negotiations immediately.

The onset of litigation sends a business that has long prided itself on stability into a rare period of uncertainty at a time of record popularity and revenues.

The logjam leaves up in the air the future of the NFL, a $9.3 billion-a-year juggernaut. A work stoppage would cost both sides hundreds of millions of dollars and could cause the cancellation of games later this year for the first time since 1987.

Decertifying as a union allows the players to sue the NFL on antitrust grounds. Such litigation is not allowed during collective bargaining.

The players’ suit was filed in Minnesota before U.S. District Judge David Doty, who presides over the legal issues between the union representing 1,700 players and the 32 team owners.

For the union, heading to court moves the disagreement to what has been a friendly venue. After a lengthy lawsuit two decades ago, Judge Doty granted the players free agency. That ruling ultimately led to the current collective bargaining agreement and nearly two decades of labor peace. The players have won more victories in Judge Doty’s courtroom than they have lost.

John Mara, co-owner of the New York Giants, said going to court was the union’s strategy all along. “The union’s position on core economic issues has not changed one iota,” Mr. Mara said. “Their objective was to go to litigation.”

However, the strategy isn’t without risks. Litigation could lead to a lengthy work stoppage. If that happens, the players will have to do something they have never done before—hold firm and endure more than just a few weeks of missed paychecks.

Sports labor veterans say that will be the ultimate test for the union and its leader Mr. Smith, who has been on the job less than two years and has no previous experience in labor fights.

NFL players are different than other professional athletes because their careers are decidedly shorter, just 3.5 years on average. Missing a season, or even half a season, means giving up a significant portion of the amount of money they will earn.

What became clear late Friday is that the two sides are far apart not only in their proposals but in their interpretation of the proposals.

Jeff Pash, the league’s lead negotiator, said owners had offered to keep player pay at 2009 levels and raise it by $20 million per club over the next four years. The NFL season would remain at 16 games for the next two years, but then could expand to 18 games. Off season and pre-season workouts would be cut. Retirement and health care benefits would improve and contracts could be guaranteed beyond one year.

Jim Quinn, a lead negotiator for the union, said the owners’ proposal would have rolled back player pay to 2007 levels and amounted to a giveback of up to $8 billion over the course of the proposed 10-year deal. In addition, he said a flat salary cap would be imposed at $130 million, as the league would move away from basing player compensation on the percentage of revenues.

Write to Matthew Futterman at matthew.futterman@wsj.com

The Big East Football Conference is in the midst of experiencing its biggest changes since its founding in 1991. Gone are perennial powers Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College as well as league doormat, Temple. New to the conference are Louisville, Cincinnati, and South Florida. Some are calling the changes one big folly; while others believe that the conference will shake off its losses and move forward stronger and wiser.

Three letters have hurt the Big East Conference over the past few years. They are: A-C-C. ACC, as in Atlantic Coast Conference, who lured and then persuaded three Big East schools to make the leap over to the ACC. For the Big East, the three schools represented the league’s top football powers as well as two high performing Men’s Basketball squads: Boston College and Miami. In this age of lucrative television contracts and super conferences the three defecting schools took the money and ran.

Purists were left howling by the departures and at the ACC’s trolling of the Big East Conference. Some suggested lawsuits, while others stated that there was no legal obligation for the schools to stay.

Once it was confirmed that the three departing schools would leave, the Big East Conference was faced with a dilemma that could only undermine its ability to not only thrive, but to survive. It had previously been decided that Temple would be forced out as their program did not measure up to Big East Conference standards, or so it has been said. Still, Temple was not invited back and the Big East began to look elsewhere for schools to fill their depleted ranks. So, the Big East turned to the Conference USA.

Louisville, Cincinnati, and South Florida ? along with Marquette who doesn’t play football ? were all persuaded to leave Conference USA for the Big East. For some, this is where the folly begins.

Do the three new schools measure up to the programs which they are replacing? Absolutely not. Louisville comes closest and is likely nearly equal to Boston College in strength, but their football program does not compare to either Virginia Tech or Miami. Cincinnati compares much more favorably to the departed Temple team, while South Florida is a new Division 1-A program and was only added to replace Miami as the league’s warm weather school. Just kidding?I think.

The remaining conference schools are Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, and West Virginia. West Virginia is the current conference leader while Rutgers is taking advantage of a weakened conference and also sitting near the top. The remaining schools are rebuilding, making the Big East Conference extra weak this year.

The pundits and prognosticators know that the Big East is reeling and they understand that there is no guarantee that the present league configuration will produce football programs on the level of the dearly departed members. In my opinion, give the conference two or three years and you may find that with just a couple of years of excellent recruiting new leaders will emerge. Perhaps now is the time for Rutgers, Louisville, and South Florida to step it up a notch or two, thereby ensuring valuable television rights and lucrative bowl bids for the conference.