Cristiano Ronaldo believes the Saudi Pro League he joined this season could in time become one of the top five leagues in the world.

The Portugal captain joined Al Nassr in January on a contract estimated by some media reports to be worth more than €200 million ($220.16 million).

- Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (U.S.)

Ronaldo has played in three of the world's top leagues with stints at Real Madrid in LaLiga, Manchester United in the Premier League and Juventus in Serie A.

The 38-year-old said the quality of the Saudi competition had improved even in his short time in it.

"We are much better and the Saudi league is getting better and the next year will be even better," he told Saudi SSC channel on Tuesday.

"Step-by-step I think this league will be among the top five leagues in the world but they need time, players and infrastructure.

"But I believe that this country have amazing potential, they have amazing people and the league will be great in my opinion."

The Saudis do not lack ambition and a source told Reuters earlier this month that Riyadh club Al Hilal had made a formal offer to secure the services of Lionel Messi, Ronaldo's rival for the title of best player of his generation.

Ronaldo scored a stunning winner on Tuesday as Al-Nassr fought back to beat visitors Al Shabab 3-2 and put Al-Ittihad's Saudi Pro League title celebrations on hold.

U.S. women's national team forward Catarina Macario has announced that she will not recover in time from an ACL injury to play in this summer's Women's World Cup.

Macario, 23, has not played since suffering the injury in French club Lyon's final game of last season almost a year ago.

- Women's World Cup bracket and fixtures schedule
- Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (U.S.)

Although she has returned to training, the end of Lyon's season on Saturday will leave her unable to get competitive minutes before USWNT coach Vlatko Andonovski announces his roster for the World Cup by July 10. The tournament in Australia and New Zealand is set to begin on July 20, with the U.S. playing its opener against Vietnam a day later.

"While I'm excited and super optimistic about my future as a footballer, I'm sad to share that I won't be physically ready for selection to our U.S. World Cup team," Macario posted on social media.

"The desire to return to play for my country has driven my training and fueled my everyday life. However, what's most important right now is my mental health and getting fit and ready for my next club season.

"I am eternally grateful to Aspetar Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Hospital for always supporting me and guiding me in my rehab. And to U.S. Soccer and Vlatko Andonovski for prioritizing my long-term health over any individual and collective ambitions.

"I'll be cheering hard for my teammates at the World Cup, and I look forward to dedicating myself to fight to earn a spot for what I hope will be a long future on the U.S. national team."

Macario, who has been linked with a move to WSL side Chelsea, has eight goals and two assists in 17 appearances for the U.S. and had been a key figure for the team. She was named the MVP of the SheBelieves Cup in February after scoring two goals in the team's final game against Iceland.

The absence of Macario is a further blow to the U.S., which is seeking a third successive World Cup title, following forward Mallory Swanson suffering a torn patella tendon last month.

Raheem Sterling has been left out of England's 25-man squad for next month's Euro 2024 qualifiers against Malta and North Macedonia while Eberechi Eze and Lewis Dunk have earned call-ups.

Sterling has struggled for form and fitness this season after moving from Manchester City to Chelsea in a £47.5 million deal last summer, registering nine goals and four assists in 37 appearances across all competitions.

- Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (U.S.)

Sources have told ESPN that Sterling, who has 82 caps, remains fully committed to England and his omission in June is a mutual decision based on how best to manage his body ahead of next season.

And after naming his squad at Wembley on Thursday, Southgate told a news conference: "I spoke with him a week or so ago, a general catch-up. He's not happy physically with his condition, he's been carrying a hamstring problem.

"He really wasn't in consideration. We didn't get to the point of whether he should be in or out. He doesn't think he's operating at the level he needs so that was the conversation I had with him."

Eze has scored six goals in eight games for Crystal Palace as they have revived their fortunes under Roy Hodgson. He is yet to make his senior debut but missed out on being part of England's provisional squad for Euro 2020 after suffering an Achilles injury on the eve of the tournament.

"We've liked him for a long time," Southgate said of Eze. "He was very unfortunate just before the Euros. We were going to call him into a prep camp to have a look at him and he got a bad injury. I remember talking to Roy Hodgson about him then and Roy telling me he had picked up an injury in training that day.

"So I think he has finished the season really strongly. He can play in a couple of positions across that attacking line. He is a goal threat. He has got a nice ability, a burst of speed to go past people and to take people out of the game with his dribbling skills. We are looking forward to seeing him a bit closer and everybody I talk to speaks brilliantly about him as a person as well."

Dunk earned his first call-up in four-and-half years after thriving at Brighton and rejoins England's squad along with Aston Villa's Tyrone Mings, whose last cap came in March 2022 against Cote d'Ivoire.

While Nick Pope, Ben Chilwell and Mason Mount miss out through injury, Eze's Palace teammate Sam Johnstone has been included along with Callum Wilson, selected after Ivan Toney was banned for eight months for breaking Football Association rules on betting.

The timing of this international double-header is awkward for Southgate given it comes more than two weeks after the end of the Premier League season with just six days between the Champions League final - contested by Manchester City, who have five played in the England squad, and Inter Milan -- and their first match against Malta.

Asked about the level of motivation for players at the end of a gruelling season which also featured the first-ever winter World Cup, Southgate said: "I don't think the rest of the world will be doing that this summer and we've played North Macedonia twice at home and never beaten them. So, I think we could easily fall into that trap.

"To be a top team, if we want to be European champions, we've got to nail the big games like we did in March and you've got to make sure you nail the more complicated ones because everybody has the view that you've just given.

"It is a good test of commitment, of togetherness. We don't want to let each other down and keep progressing as a team. We have five opportunities to work together before a European Championship if we can qualify and we played so well in March, we need to back it up and make sure we aren't needing to go to North Macedonia at the end of this competition needing a result to get through."

England squad in full:

Goalkeepers: Jordan Pickford, Aaron Ramsdale, Sam Johnstone

Defenders: Trent Alexander-Arnold, Lewis Dunk, Marc Guehi, Harry Maguire, Tyrone Mings, Luke Shaw, John Stones, Kieran Trippier, Kyle Walker

Midfielders: Jude Bellingham, Eberechi Eze, Conor Gallagher, Jordan Henderson, James Maddison, Kalvin Phillips, Declan Rice

Forwards: Phil Foden, Jack Grealish, Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka, Callum Wilson

The treble is so rare in English football that when Sir Alex Ferguson addressed his players at Camp Nou ahead of the 1999 Champions League final, he likened it to flying to the moon.

Manchester United had already lifted the Premier League trophy and the FA Cup during the previous 10 days, standing on the verge of becoming the first English team to win all three competitions in the same season. But despite his rousing speech before kickoff, Ferguson realised very quickly that even for an outstanding team, the final game of a gruelling season spent fighting on three fronts was 90 minutes too far. Bayern Munich were better, except during three minutes of stoppage time when Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored the goals that wrote United into the history books.

It's been nearly a quarter of a century, but Pep Guardiola and Manchester City are two games away from joining them. The Premier League is already theirs, while all that stands between them and the treble is an FA Cup final against United on June 3 and a Champions League final against Inter Milan a week later on June 10.

Like Ferguson 24 years ago, it's up to Guardiola to plot his way through the remaining three weeks of the season and make sure City don't miss the chance to reach the moon.

- Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (U.S.)

City's run-in -- so far -- has been far more serene than the one United experienced in 1999. Guardiola's team rattled off 12 straight league wins to overhaul Arsenal at the top of the table, won their FA Cup semifinal against Sheffield United 3-0 and thrashed Real Madrid 4-0 in their Champions League semifinal second leg.

United, in contrast, drew four of their last eight league games and had to beat Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford on the final day of the season to win the Premier League. Their FA Cup semifinal against Arsenal went to a replay, in which Roy Keane was sent off and Peter Schmeichel saved a Dennis Bergkamp penalty, and in the Champions League semifinal second leg against Juventus, United were 2-0 down in 10 minutes. Against Bayern in the final, they were behind for 85 minutes before Sheringham's equaliser.

Since City last lost a game, to Tottenham on Feb. 5, they've been behind for a total of 41 minutes -- 10 minutes against Liverpool in April, and a little over 30 minutes against Real Madrid in the Bernabeu in May. If United's treble is remembered for being wonderfully chaotic, City's charge has, for the most part, been calm and controlled.

The nature of United's run-in meant that from Old Trafford, to Wembley and on to Barcelona, the players were riding a wave of momentum. Training was limited as much as possible to preserve energy, and the most running they did was when Schmeichel chased Dwight Yorke in anger because the striker had scored a Panenka penalty while the squad practiced spot kicks before the Champions League final. (The goalkeeper only calmed down when Yorke swore that he was taking the exercise seriously and he planned to do the same against Bayern.)

Guardiola's dilemma between now and the FA Cup final is how to maintain the rhythm of his key players, like Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne, without putting too many more minutes in their legs or risking injury. City's remaining league games against Brighton & Hove Albion and Brentford -- with nothing at stake -- present a problem for Guardiola because he believes two poor performances could impact the game against United.

"I don't know if they have that feeling to play against Brighton and Brentford at this point, in those terms, because the target for the Premier League is done, but we cannot drop much, otherwise it makes it more difficult," he told a news conference on Tuesday. "The demanding FA Cup final against Man United will be really, really difficult, and I've started to watch a little bit some minutes of Inter Milan and I'm really impressed, really impressed at what they do."

It's a twist of fate that City are looking to match a feat first achieved by United, their city neighbours, and it's United, along with Inter, who stand in their way.

When Liverpool were aiming to become the first English team to do the treble in 1977, they were beaten by United in the FA Cup final in between lifting the First Division title and the European Cup. Liverpool were English football's dominant force for much of the 1970s and 1980s, winning 11 league titles and four European Cups in two decades between 1970 and 1990, but 1977 was as close as they got to the treble. And despite all of United's dominance under Ferguson -- 13 league titles, five FA Cups and four Champions League finals -- it all came together just once in 1999.

Guardiola and City are next to stand on the brink of history. As United can tell them, the chance doesn't come around very often.

Kansas forward Kevin McCullar Jr. has withdrawn his name from the NBA draft and will return to the Jayhawks for his final season, the school announced on Wednesday, likely cementing Kansas as the preseason No. 1 in men's college basketball.

McCullar attended the NBA draft combine, but was not a lock to be selected; ESPN had him No. 70 in its draft rankings. For Kansas, however, his return gives Bill Self's team one of the best defenders in the country as well as experience and continuity.

"How about one more year Jayhawk nation," McCullar said. "To be able to play in front of the best fans in the country; to play for the best coach in the nation, I truly believe we have the pieces to hang another banner in the Phog. Rock Chalk! Let's do it!"

A 6-foot-6 wing from Texas, McCullar started 33 games last season for Kansas, averaging 10.7 points, 7.0 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 2.0 steals. It was his first season in Lawrence after spending the first three seasons of his career at Big 12 rival Texas Tech. McCullar earned third-team All-Big 12 honors last season and was named honorable mention all-league in 2021 and 2022.

He's also one of the elite defenders in college basketball, being named a Naismith Defensive Player of the Year semifinalist each of the past two seasons.

"This is a big day for Kansas basketball," Self said. "We've had a lot of good things happen through recruiting this offseason, but nothing that has transpired this offseason was bigger for KU basketball than having a seasoned veteran like Kevin McCullar return to our program."

With McCullar back in the fold, Kansas has a strong chance to be the No. 1 team entering next season. The Jayhawks rose to No. 2 in ESPN's Way-Too-Early Top 25 after the addition of Michigan transfer Hunter Dickinson, the best player in the portal, but McCullar puts them over the top. He joins Dajuan Harris and K.J. Adams as returning starters from last season's Big 12 champions, while Dickinson, Arterio Morris (Texas) and Nicolas Timberlake (Towson) should all be impact transfers. Kansas also adds a top-15 recruiting class, led by No. 25 overall recruit Elmarko Jackson.

ASHBURN, Va., -- Second-year Washington Commanders tight end Armani Rogers, whom the team anticipated becoming a bigger part of its offense this season, suffered a noncontact Achilles injury and likely is lost for the season.

Rogers suffered the injury while running during an OTA practice Tuesday.

In 11 games, three of them starts, Rogers caught only five passes for 64 yards last season, but he missed time with various knee and ankle injuries. He had transitioned from being a college quarterback with Nevada and then Ohio University to an undrafted free agent NFL tight end.

His progress, as a blocker and as a pass-catcher, pleased Washington. The Commanders liked his athleticism.

"It's a blow," coach Ron Rivera said. "The young man really progressed well for us last year. But we feel confident in the group of tight ends."

Washington still has veterans Logan Thomas and John Bates, as well as 2022 fifth-round pick Cole Turner and an undrafted free agent last year in Curtis Hodges.

Victor Wembanyama runs toward the bleachers. His team has just won its latest French league game in the Paris suburbs, but as his teammates fist-bump one another and amble in the direction of the locker room, Wembanyama goes the other way. He literally sprints toward the stands.

When he arrives in front of the hundred or so most passionate supporters of Nanterre (who, to be clear, root for the team Wembanyama has just beaten), the gangly, 7-foot-4 teenager doesn't preen in front of them or woof about having put up 25 points, 17 rebounds and 4 blocks. He doesn't wave his arms or sneer. He doesn't do, really, any of the things that young (and not so young) athletes do when they're looking to strut a little.

Instead, Wembanyama bows his head. He tilts his body forward. He drops his shoulders.

He leans into the crowd of people and lets them wrap him in a group hug.

Over the next few weeks and months, Wembanyama's life is going to be unceasingly about what comes next: How he handles (almost surely) being drafted by the San Antonio Spurs. What his transition to the NBA is like. Where he ends up standing in relation to great French players, like Tony Parker, and just greats, like LeBron James.

It will be relentless, and there are few weights quite so heavy as that of the future laying on the back of a young person's neck. Wembanyama has no illusions: He knows what lies ahead.

But he also knows there needs to be a goodbye.

Long before the word "Wemby" was part of the global basketball zeitgeist, Wembanyama was a big kid from a small village who made good. A kid who was proud to be French, who was determined to rise up through the French sports system, who has a connection to places and people and memories in France that are -- NBA or not -- very hard to leave.

That is why, on this Tuesday night in Nanterre, Wembanyama's eyes are wet when he finally emerges from the mass of fans. Nanterre, despite being dominated by Wembanyama on this particular evening, will always be the club where he played as a boy, the club that made him. It will always feel like a home. And this is a farewell.

Wembanyama steps back and waves. He makes the shape of a heart with his hands. He smiles and nods as the fans begin to chant, "Il est d'ici! Il est d'ici!"

He's from here, they say over and over. He's from here.

TWO DAYS BEFORE the game in Nanterre's tiny gymnasium, Wembanyama plays the Accor Arena, Paris' biggest indoor venue. Wembanyama's team, Metropolitans 92, known colloquially as the Mets, typically hold their home games in a small arena in Levallois-Perret, on the outskirts of the city. A full crowd there might be 2,800. This game has been moved, though, to give more people the opportunity to see Wembanyama up close before he leaves.

Nearly 16,000 fans jam inside. Tickets sell on the secondary market for several hundred dollars. Some things about the atmosphere -- like the depths to which otherwise-normal people will debase themselves to get a T-shirt shot at them from an oversized gun -- are the same as on a random night anywhere in professional sports. Other aspects, like the singular focus on Wembanyama (Wemby running, Wemby stealing, Wemby blocking, Wemby dunking), feel unique.

The crowd erupts when Wembanyama steals the ball in the first quarter and goes coast-to-coast for a dunk. The crowd erupts when Wembanyama makes an authoritative block. The crowd erupts -- in anger -- when Wembanyama is called for a questionable offensive foul and then gestures at the fans, encouraging them to boo the referee even more.

"I'm here for Victor," says Paulo Lopes, who is wearing a Wembanyama jersey and buying a soda on the concourse.

"I'm here to see Victor," says Sylvain Mousseau, who is sitting in the upper deck with his family.

"I'm here because my son told me we have to see Victor," says Anne-gael Salaun, whose 8-year-old, Carl, has already begun negotiating screen time rules with his mother so he can watch Wembanyama's NBA games next season.

It doesn't matter that many (if not most) of the people at the game are not regular followers of French basketball. The vast majority of people at the Louvre on any given day aren't art connoisseurs; they just want to see the Mona Lisa, to see something truly beautiful with their own eyes.

It is the same with Wembanyama, a giant who plays like a guard. He is angular and spindly, but also powerful and fierce when he gets near the basket. His ability to shoot from distance is that of a man half his height. He is the kind of player who can (and does) win the French league's MVP, best young player, best defender, best shot-blocker and top scorer awards all in the same season. LeBron James called Wembanyama a basketball alien. And who doesn't want to see such an extraordinary player?

"I felt so much emotion seeing the number of people who had come," Wembanyama says. "I sometimes see dads or moms who absolutely want a photo [with me], not even for their children. Just for them. It's funny and it's fun."

Understanding what Wembanyama means in the context of French culture is tricky. Basketball is still something of a niche sport in France, at least in comparison to soccer, and Wembanyama plays in a region that features Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé as sporting contemporaries, not to mention a slew of other incredible art and film and culinary cultural touchstones.

Yet there is something about Wembanyama that is captivating. Part of it is simply the moment -- Wembanyama is big around the world, so he is big in France -- but Pascal Giberné, a French writer and broadcaster, says there is also something about the way Wembanyama carries himself that resonates deeply with French people.

Wembanyama's lack of interest, at least so far, in publicizing himself or making himself into anything beyond a talented young basketball player has given him an ethereal, almost mythical quality in France.

"Usually French people don't like it when you are too confident -- we don't have here what you'd call 'cockiness' in the United States; it's just arrogance," Giberné says. "Victor isn't any of this. People are just captivated by him. He is cultivating this mystique and people are more attracted by this.

"They are proud that he is French, because he is proud that he is French and he acts that way," Giberné says.

There is also a theory being bandied about among sports journalists and fans that Wembanyama could be the face of a larger shift toward basketball in France. The sport's popularity has surged with younger fans around the world over the past decade, and if Tony Parker and Boris Diaw were among the initial generation of French stars to inspire interest in basketball in France, then Wembanyama -- if he really does reach the heights that have been speculated -- could push the swing even farther.

Maxime Raynaud, who played with Wembanyama in Nanterre's youth system and is now a sophomore at Stanford, says the timing for this turn is ideal.

"We've had this traditional setup in France -- you are going to play the sport your dad played, or the sport he watches," Raynaud says. "And so for the past 100 years, everyone just picked up a soccer ball. Now, we have access to basketball. We have role models for basketball. And Victor is going to be the face of that.

"Some people might be sad that Victor is leaving France," Raynaud continues. "But I think most people, especially young people, are happy that he is going to the United States -- to show the strength of what can come from France."

FOR THE LAST YEAR, Wembanyama has lived on Ile de la Jatte, a long, skinny island in the River Seine to the west of Paris. In addition to being picturesque and private (Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president of France, is among its past and current residents), Ile de la Jatte is removed, both literally and figuratively, from the thrum of the city.

Wembanyama's connection to France isn't through the Eiffel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe, in the same way no New Yorker's bond with their city has anything to do with the Empire State Building. It is the people -- the neighbors, the shop owners, the regulars in a person's life -- that stick.

Over the footbridge connecting Ile de la Jatte to the commune of Neuilly is Wembanyama's regular market where Rose, the woman who works there, knows to take out mangos and grapes and clementines when she sees Wembanyama approaching ("I always put the best mangos up front," she says). A few doors up is the grocer where Max, the man who stocks the shelves and worries about Wembanyama hitting his head on the pendant lights that hang above the aisles. On the corner is the butcher, where Wembanyama -- who has always been interested in cuisine -- will stop for a roast chicken and potatoes, and chatter with Imad or Nicolas in their aprons, or Brigitte behind the register, about how much fat went into their preparation or what type of heat they used to cook the meat.

"I think the notion of family has always been really important to Victor," Raynaud says. "And that doesn't just mean his biological family. It's everyone in his life. He has this feeling for them that is very strong and he will not hide it."

Wembanyama has always been this way. There is a softness to him, a candor and earnestness that makes it impossible for those around him not to feel kinship. Amine El Hajraoui, a longtime administrator and youth coach at Nanterre, recalls a weekend tournament years ago when Wembanyama, no more than 13, showed up for a morning game carrying a plastic bag full of precooked, vacuum-sealed drumsticks. Wembanyama, who was already well over 6 feet tall, did not understand why everyone was looking at him quizzically. "What?" he said sincerely. "I need these. I'm still growing!"

El Hajraoui remembers the chicken, but also the conversations they would have about life and family and the TV show "Rick & Morty." ("He loved that show," El Hajraoui says.) Bryan George, who coached at Nanterre, remembers playing board games with Wembanyama -- on the bus, in the dorms, wherever. They both loved Risk, a game which was originally invented in France.

Raynaud thinks of Wembanyama at Big Time, the fast-food restaurant in Place de la Boulle, a short walk from the dorms, where Nanterre players would go after big wins. Or Wembanyama reading books in the extra-long bed the club had specially made for him. Or Wembanyama talking about manga. Or Wembanyama showing him, every once in a while, the sketchbook where he does his own drawings.

"My best memories of basketball are in these places," Raynaud says. "We were just there, together. We were ourselves. However big a player he was, Victor was always just himself."

Nanterre officials have put nameplates above dorm rooms where certain players stayed to commemorate what they accomplished. Typically, those nameplates go up many years after the athlete is gone -- once they've had an impressive career or succeeded with the national team.

Wembanyama left Nanterre in 2021. There is already a nameplate above his old room.

"Victor is special," El Hajraoui says. "Anyone who stays here now can feel his aura."

WHEN WEMBANYAMA WAS 14, he spent a summer playing with Barcelona's basketball club. The Spanish team was interested in bringing him to their program full time, and the offer was intriguing: Barcelona is a much bigger club than Nanterre. A bigger city. A bigger stage.

Wembanyama said no. As appealing as it was to have Barcelona try to woo him, Wembanyama was concerned that Barcelona's coaches wouldn't be critical enough. Wouldn't push him hard enough to make every facet of his game be the best.

In Nanterre -- with the French coaches he trusted and the life he knew -- he felt safe, even if it would be harder. It was better for him to stay in France, he thought.

"He wasn't trying to be something he wasn't," Raynaud says. "He didn't want to go to Spain. He didn't want to move around. He is a French guy. He's French. It's clear."

Back then, the time wasn't right for Wembanyama to say goodbye. Now it is. Other than perhaps Imad, the butcher, who is concerned about the quality of the food Wembanyama will get in the United States ("I worry it won't be as good as he gets here!"), no one questions the notion that Wembanyama, with Gregg Popovich and San Antonio awaiting, has to go.

There has been plenty of flash to his farewell -- the French rapper Orelsan was at a game recently, as well as Mbappe and the actor Omar Sy -- and there has been plenty of emotion, too, moments of genuine reflection and wistfulness from Wembanyama as he prepares to leave home.

Before the game against the Mets, Nanterre officials give him a series of gifts, including a jersey, which he holds close, and after his group embrace with the fans, he runs a slow ring around the entire gymnasium, touching hands with as many people as he can and giving his game-worn elbow sleeve to a little boy wearing sensory headphones and sitting on his father's shoulders. These are his people, and when Wembanyama and Nanterre's president, Frederic Donnadieu, have a private moment, it becomes a shared opportunity for gratitude: Wembanyama thanks Donnadieu for bringing him to Nanterre, and Donnadieu thanks Wembanyama for all that he brought.

Now the United States beckons, and soon Wembanyama will be gone, ensconced in the churn of the NBA -- new practices and new systems and new teammates, new SUVs to drive and new Texas barbecue joints to try. Yet even as Wembanyama goes out from France, even as he leaves his old life behind, he is already thinking about how he might return to France with joy because this place -- his place -- will always be in him.

Giberné, the writer and broadcaster, recalls a conversation he had with Wembanyama last fall, when the two discussed how difficult it will be to win an NBA championship in his first season.

It will be so challenging, Giberné says, and Wembanyama agrees. But then his eyes flicker.

"You know the Olympics are in Paris in 2024," Wembanyama tells Giberné. "And there could be no more perfect occasion for me to win my first title with the French national team."

Wembanyama smiles.

"My goal," he says, "is to beat Team USA in the final."

Additional reporting by Tom Nouvian

The Athletics have reached a tentative agreement with Nevada state and local officials on a stadium funding plan after weeks of negotiations over how much public assistance the state will contribute to a $1.5 billion ballpark in Las Vegas, according to a joint statement issued Wednesday.

The tentative agreement between the A's, the governor's office, state treasurer Zach Conine and Clark County officials indicates a funding bill will be introduced in the Nevada Legislature in the coming days with less than two weeks until the legislative session's end. It still needs approval from both the state Senate and Assembly.

"This agreement follows months of negotiations between the state, the county, and the A's, and I believe it gives us a tremendous opportunity to continue building on the professional sports infrastructure of southern Nevada," Governor Joe Lombardo said in a statement. "Las Vegas is clearly a sports town, and Major League Baseball should be a part of it."

The threat of a special legislative session looms if lawmakers can't agree on the bill by the end of the regular session on June 5. The financing is not a sure thing either.

The bill comes on the heels of the Athletics' purchase of 35 acres for a potential 30,000-seat stadium on the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip where the Tropicana Las Vegas casino resort sits -- a pivot from an earlier agreement that would have required a heftier $500 million price tag that many lawmakers signaled was too high.

The joint statement did not give a specific number for the amount of public assistance the A's will ask for.

The project includes the most private investment of any stadium in Major League Baseball, Conine said in the release.

"I am excited that we have finally received the A's proposal and we are currently reviewing it," state Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager said in the release. "As I have continuously said throughout this process, no commitment will be made until we have both evaluated the official proposal and received input from interested parties, including impacted community members."

Athletics president Dave Kaval has said he hopes to break ground on a new ballpark next year and open the venue in time for the 2027 season. The A's have a lease at Oakland Coliseum through 2024, and they could play the 2025 and '26 seasons at Las Vegas Ballpark, home to their Triple-A affiliate Aviators.

"We're very appreciative of the support from the State of Nevada and Clark County's leadership," A's president Dave Kaval said in a statement. "... We look forward to advancing this legislation in a responsible way."

The A's lost Tuesday to fall to 10-40 -- the fourth-worst start through the first 50 games of a big league season and the worst since the 1932 Boston Red Sox.

The A's had been looking for a new home for years to replace the outdated and run-down Oakland Coliseum, where the team has played since arriving from Kansas City for the 1968 season. It is averaging less than 8,700 fans at home through 25 dates this season, by far the lowest among the 30 teams.

Las Vegas would be the fourth home for a franchise that started as the Philadelphia Athletics from 1901-54. It would become the smallest TV market in Major League Baseball and the smallest market to be home to three major professional sports franchises. The team and the city are hoping to draw from the nearly 40 million tourists who visit Las Vegas annually to help fill the stadium.

Earlier this month, the A's reached a deal with the Culinary Union, Nevada's most politically powerful union that represents more than 60,000 workers in the Las Vegas area, which guarantees that A's workers have the right to organize and negotiate union contracts.

Information from ESPN's Paul Gutierrez and The Associated Press was used in this report.