Sports Beat

We all know that Janet Jackson won't be allowed anywhere near an NFL-sanctioned stage in the near future. Now no one will. Due to the continued fallout from Janetgate, the NFL canceled its annual Kickoff Live concert, which was scheduled to take place at Chicago's Soldier Field preceding the season opener on Sept. 4. The league is considering a pretaped "football-oriented" banquet to be shown before the game instead of continuing the shows, which in past years starred Bon Jovi and Britney Spears. "I'm the commissioner of football, not the commissioner of music," Paul Tagliabue told team owners. Which is probably a good thing, since Tagliabue told Congress that if the Super Bowl halftime show had been up to him, "I would have had Andy Williams."

?Turns out that Mike Ditka and Donald Trump have more in common than interesting hair. Bill Rancic, 32, is one of the six remaining finalists on Trump's reality show, The Apprentice. He's also the president of Cigars Around the World, makers of the Mike Ditka Cigar, which is sold at Ditka's restaurant in Chicago. According to Rancic, Ditka was hands-on with the project. "Those who know the coach know how he is a perfectionist," says Rancic. Ditka is currently filming the movie Kicking and Screaming with Will Ferrell and Robert Duvall, while Rancic is the 6-1 favorite to land Trump's apprenticeship. Should he win, he'll have no shortage of celebratory stogies to smoke.

?He might have missed out on the realities of school daze to play in the NBA, but LeBron James could be playing a BMOC in a Spike Lee joint this summer. Lee directed James in a commercial for Turner Sports before the season and has been pushing to cast him in a feature film ever since. While the script is still in the preliminary stages, James would reportedly play a college basketball star. James's agent, Aaron Goodwin, said talks will resume this week.

?Jacky Temmerman has sworn off soccer. The ref was calling a game in his native Belgium when a fan ran onto the pitch and pulled down Temmerman's shorts and underpants. "I looked very nice in front of a few hundred supporters," said Temmerman, sarcastically. "That man made a fool of me. I will never dare to show up for another match. They can look for another idiot who is prepared to stand with his ass naked for 20 euros a game." The fan, a 20-year-old soccer player, faces a possible lifetime ban from the Belgian Football Association....

A year after inducting ESPN commentator Barry Melrose into its Mullet Hall of Fame, the Manchester Monarchs of the AHL inducted the fictional Hanson Brothers from the 1977 movie Slap Shot last Friday. In observance of the special moment, the team distributed 5,000 mullet wings at its game that night....

Royals farmhand Garth Brooks scratched out his second hit in 42 career spring training at-bats when he singled off Seattle lefty Mike Myers. "I was even more surprised than the pitcher," Brooks said. Brooks's last hit came in 1999.