PITTSBURGH — Steelers linebacker James Harrison had an appeal hearing on his one-game suspension.

The hearing, via video conference call Wednesday, was conducted by Ted Cottrell, who was hired by the league and the NFL Players Association to oversee such appeals. No decision is expected until Thursday at the earliest.

Harrison was suspended Tuesday for Pittsburgh's game next Monday night at San Francisco because of his helmet-to-helmet hit on Cleveland quarterback Colt McCoy, who suffered a concussion. That hit came in Pittsburgh's 14-3 win on Dec. 8.

The NFL cited Harrison's history of flagrant hits — this was his fifth on a quarterback — in making him the first player suspended under stricter guidelines for player safety that were invoked midway through last season.

NEW YORK — With NFL games enjoying seemingly invincible ratings while most everything else on TV goes down, down, down, the league's traditional broadcast partners embraced a deal that sends their rights fees up, up, up.CBS, Fox and NBC renewed their contracts for nine years through the 2022 season, the NFL announced Wednesday. The average fees from the three networks will increase by an average of 7 percent annually, a person familiar with the details said. That will take the total revenue from them from the current $1.93 billion per year to $3.1 billion by 2022.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Magic general manager Otis Smith said Wednesday the team's goal remains to keep Dwight Howard in a Magic uniform as long as they possibly can and that the trade talks “could go to the end of the season.”Smith would not say whether trade talks for the center are off, but did say there was no deal in place.

WACO, Texas — Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III was greeted with the Superman theme and chants of “One more year! One more year!” when he was honored at halftime of the Baylor men's basketball game Wednesday night.

HOUSTON — The Houston Texans must adjust to the loss of their top assistant coach.Wade Phillips, who's turned the Houston defense into the NFL's best, will have surgery this week to resolve a kidney condition and will be away from the team for a week to 10 days.