The Boston Globe may learn its fate Sunday as management and a key union try to hash out concessions that parent company New York Times Co says are crucial to keeping newspaper alive.

The Times Co had set Friday as the deadline for the union to make its concessions, but extended it through Sunday night after both sides said they made progress toward an agreement.

The Boston Newspaper Guild said it has offered deep cuts in member pay and benefits to help the Times find $20 million in cost cuts at the Globe.

The Times said the paper would lose $85 million this year and the cuts were essential to keeping the Globe open.

If it closed, Boston and the surrounding region would become the first place in the United States to lack a daily, full-service general newspaper of comparable size.

The Boston Newspaper Guild has met what the New York Times Company and Globe management said they needed, said a Guild statement released on Sunday morning.

While final agreement will require further negotiations, the guild enters today's talks having now offered tremendous sacrifices that should be more than adequate to save the Boston Globe.

The guild said it is optimistic that the Times Co is genuinely committed to reaching agreement.

The Boston Newspaper Guild is one of the largest of about a dozen unions at the Globe, and represents about 600 people in editorial, advertising and other business roles. It is on the hook for coming up with $10 million in cost cuts.

Other unions would account for the rest.

Pay cuts and ending or curtailing other benefits such as lifetime job guarantees that some employees have are among the options for saving money at the Globe.

While The Times and the union cited progress, the extension came after the union said the Times Co made a math error that would result in the union having to make bigger sacrifices.

(Reporting by Robert MacMillan, editing by Maureen Bavdek)