Sports Authority

The NFL hopes of Memphis, Tenn., a city that has been chasing pro football for two decades, appear to be troubled.Investors in that city's prospective ownership group complained the loudest last week when the league set a franchise fee of $140 million. With interest and terms, the cost of entry into pro football could near $200 million.William B. Dunavant Jr., a cotton merchant and head of Memphis' bid, said last week: "If the ownership group can make the financing work -- we haven't yet -- and we can come up with a Liberty Bowl that is state of the art, then Memphis can have a franchise.

Police arrested two more teen-agers yesterday in connection with three armed robberies that terrorized residents of North Baltimore a week ago. Kendall Alexander, 16, and Branston Lewis, 17, surrendered to authorities yesterday and have each been charged as adults with three counts of armed robbery, said Officer Troy Harris, a police spokesman. Dorean Jackson, 16, was arrested Monday and charged as an adult with armed robbery. Addresses of the three suspects were not available, police said.

TROY, Mich. -- Kmart Corp., under pressure for months from investors who want it to focus on its ailing discount stores, said yesterday that it will sell majority stakes in three of its four specialty retail businesses.Kmart plans initial public offerings of shares in its Borders/Waldenbooks, Sports Authority and OfficeMax chains.OfficeMax will be the first on the block. Its IPO is expected to be filed within a few weeks, Kmart said after a special board meeting. The company would not say how much it hopes to raise from the stock sale.

Some leaders of the NFL expansion bid in Memphis, Tenn., openly questioning long-standing plans to have a team play at a renovated Liberty Bowl, are reviving consideration of building a new stadium.Ron Terry, a banker and chairman of the Memphis and Shelby County Sports Authority Corp., told the authority's 18-member board Friday that Memphis has "practically no chance" of landing an NFL team without at least a long-term stadium plan.Among the finalists for the two expansion franchises the league will award this fall, Baltimore, St. Louis and Charlotte, N.C., are all promising new stadiums.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- More than 100 acres of the New Jersey Meadowlands would be developed as a family entertainment complex with an indoor ski slope, indoor surfing, a Formula One racetrack, a minor league baseball stadium and office towers, under a $1.3 billion redevelopment plan chosen recently by the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority. The project, called Meadowlands Xanadu, is the proposal of the Mills Corp., the Virginia-based mall developer, and the Mack Cali Realty Corp.

The first thing to hit you when you walk into the Sports Authority, an airplane-hangar-size retail outlet in Glen Burnie, is the shoes: thousands of shoes stacked 30 feet high in skyscraper aisles. The new-shoe smell is thick, like the first ride in a new car.Angela Rowland of Arbutus, doing some early Christmas shopping, is wheeling a cart through the 40,000 square feet of merchandise, past the aisles of shoes, past the bicycles, sweat suits and rowing machines, the shotguns, bowling balls and kayaks -- 35,000 items in all.She used to shop at Herman's World of Sporting Goods, "but the selection wasn't as good."

Am I the only one who has gotten very tired of David Zurawik 's remarkably inane and churlish nitpicking over the quality of the broadcasts of the Ravens games ("Ravens victory Sunday sets new high in Baltimore viewing," Jan. 21)? The first thing that one concludes from reading his tirades is that Mr. Zurawik is not really a sports fan. If he were, he would know that true fans watching a game do not analyze the coverage, they are wrapped up in the game and find the comments of the "team in the booth" quite satisfactory, and, dare I say, even appropriate.

Stan Lynch was among the throng of shoppers at J. C. Penney in White Marsh rummaging through tables and racks brimming with Baltimore Ravens T-shirts and sweat shirts. "They don't have the golf shirt I'm looking for, so I'm going to get a sweat shirt," Lynch, 30, a Baltimore police officer, said last week. He wanted it because he will be host for a game party for friends at his home, as the Ravens play the Oakland Raiders for the AFC Championship today. Ravens fans' enthusiasm has been a touchdown for some Baltimore-area businesses.

Bet I can guess what Dad would like next weekend: two rain-free days with a little breeze. The lady on the Weather Channel says only five of the past 22 weekends have gone without precipitation. The last one was April 12-13. But since none of us can wrap a bow around the weather and deliver it, here are some suggestions for outdoorsy dads: There are plenty of gadgets on the market. But the baddest of the bunch is Hummingbird's SmartCast RF30 portable fish finder. Imagine casting a small green wireless sensor into a pond or river and seeing the fish and structure below on a monitor that straps on like a wristwatch.