NFL owners have enough money saved to carry them through a lost 2011 season -- even without the so called "lockout insurance" television rights revenues that might not be available after being successfully challenged in court by the locked-out players, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Unnamed NFL officials with direct knowledge of the league's budget plans told the newspaper that the owners would only need the contested $4 billion in TV rights money if the lockout stretches into the 2012 season.

"There was a clear and premeditated plan to lock out the players," George Atallah, the deputy executive director of the NFLPA, told the newspaper, pointing to the owners' stockpiling of cash.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge David Doty backed the players in their fight over the so-called "war chest" of broadcast revenue that the union contends is leverage the NFL is wielding against it in the labor fight.

The union accused the NFL of failing to secure the maximum revenue possible when it restructured broadcast contracts in 2009 and 2010, and claimed the deal to be paid by the TV networks even if there was no football in 2011 was designed to guarantee owners enough money to survive a lockout. The union argued this violated an agreement between the sides that says the NFL must make good-faith efforts to maximize revenue for players.

A hearing, yet to be scheduled, will determine potential damages for the players as well as an injunction involving the TV contracts.

Unable to decide how to divvy up $9 billion a year, NFL owners and players put the country's most popular sport in limbo this weekend by breaking off labor negotiations hours before the collective bargaining agreement expired. At midnight, as Friday became Saturday, the owners locked out the players -- creating the NFL's first work stoppage since 1987 and putting the 2011 season in jeopardy.

Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney II told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the players never even considered the owners' final proposal Friday.