Barcelona sporting director Deco has played down the chances of re-signing Neymar, saying it is not the moment for the club to be thinking about bringing the Brazil forward back.

Neymar, 33, returned to Brazil in January, signing for his childhood club Santos on a short-term deal after rescinding his contract with Saudi Pro League side Al Hilal.

ESPN previously revealed that his ultimate aim is to return to Europe, with a move to Barça -- who he left for Paris Saint-Germain in a world record 222 million transfer in 2017 -- touted in recent weeks.

"Neymar's a phenomenon and the important thing is that he's happy," Deco said in an interview with TNT Brasil.

"Being in Brazil makes him happy and that's what he should think about. It's not so much a financial issue for him.

"I think if there was a situation in the future, it would have to be right for us and for him. Football teams are built with balance and cool heads.

"Neymar was a phenomenon here, who did what he did here and won what he won, but sometimes these stories aren't repeated.

"It's not the moment for Barcelona to be thinking about Neymar or him thinking about [coming back]. He's at his club, Santos, and it's the ideal place for him."

Speaking earlier this week, Barça coach Hansi Flick had said it was not his job to make decision on signing Neymar, leaving the call in Deco's hands.

Neymar has scored three goals and provided three assists in seven appearances since re-joining Santos in January after an injury-laden18 months in Saudi Arabia following his PSG departure.

That form has led to him being named on the 52-player pre-list for the Brazil squad for March's World Cup qualifiers against Colombia and Argentina. The final squad will be announced later on Thursday.

He has not featured for the Seleção since October 2023, when he ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus in a fixture against Uruguay.

"I hope he gets back in the national team," Deco added. "People that like football like that he's happy again."

WHEN THE NEW YORK KNICKS trimmed a 27-point road deficit to four last week against the Boston Celtics, the team that hadn't found an answer for the defending champs all season looked like it might find a way to escape TD Garden with a thrilling comeback win.

"I think we just reached a level of not really caring anymore," Knicks All-Star guard Jalen Brunson said of the rally, which left New York trailing 89-85 with 11:32 remaining in the fourth quarter. "Like, 'OK, we've got to go [compete] somehow.'"

It didn't take long for the Celtics to course-correct. Over the next four minutes, Derrick White, Kristaps Porzingis and Jaylen Brown pushed their lead back to 16 points. The Celtics ultimately KO'd the Knicks by 13.

Believe it or not, it was the tightest margin New York has managed in a game with Boston this season: The Knicks were blasted by 23 on opening night as the Celtics tied the NBA record for 3-pointers in a single game, then got drilled at Madison Square Garden by 27 in early February.

Adding insult to injury, that latest loss in Boston came one game after the Knicks took a 37-point shellacking against the first-place Cleveland Cavaliers -- their largest margin of defeat in coach Tom Thibodeau's five seasons.

The Knicks, who own the NBA's fourth-best record and are on pace for their most wins in over a decade, are now 0-7 against the Celtics, Cavaliers and Oklahoma City Thunder, the three teams ahead of them in the standings. More concerning than the winless record, though, is that New York is running out of chances to change the narrative against those championship contenders.

All of which raises the question: Why are the Knicks falling woefully short against the NBA's best? And what, if anything, can they lean into in hopes of closing the gap come playoff time?

EXECUTIVES AND SCOUTS looked at the Knicks' offseason moves and saw them replicating what the Celtics did in 2022 and 2023.

In acquiring Mikal Bridges from the Brooklyn Nets, the Knicks landed a versatile defender and scoring wing, who they figured could perform far better in an environment with more talent, much like White did after being traded to Boston from the San Antonio Spurs. And after losing Isaiah Hartenstein to the Thunder in free agency, New York swung a blockbuster trade for All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns to fill the center spot. That move -- like the Celtics dealing for Kristaps Porzingis -- was designed to break opposing defenses by spreading them out and forcing them into Catch-22s prioritizing either Brunson or Towns in pick-and-roll scenarios.

This isn't to say the trades were equivalent. It's noteworthy that Boston, which ultimately netted an additional first-round pick for parting ways with Josh Richardson and ex-captain Marcus Smart for White and Porzingis, gave up far less to acquire its new starters compared to the Knicks. New York unloaded two-time All-NBA forward Julius Randle, vastly improved wing Donte DiVincenzo and a first-round pick to get Towns, and before that sent over five first-round picks to pluck Bridges from the Nets.

Nonetheless, the moves overhauled the Knicks' offense, which has been highly impressive, ranking third in the NBA even as it continues to incorporate two players who got considerable reps as No. 1 options with their previous teams. With Towns in particular, the threat of his jumper -- he's shooting a career-best 42.7% from 3 this season -- has created an endless amount of space for New York. Brunson is shooting better at the rim (66%) than he ever has as a Knick. Towns himself is logging 118 points per 100 drives, up considerably from the 108 points per 100 drives he scored with Minnesota last year.

"Playing against Towns is more of a mental battle," Utah Jazz coach Will Hardy said after Towns and the Knicks beat the Jazz in January. "The 3s are loud, but the reality is, he took 20 shots tonight, and only six were 3s. It's not like he bombed away and took 14 of them.

"When he makes two in a row ... it warps your brain. You start thinking, 'Oh man, he's killing us from 3.' And then after the game, you go, 'He had 31 points, and [only] nine of them were from 3s.'"

Hardy's assessment, while praising Towns' fit in New York, underscores part of why the Knicks are struggling against top contenders. Yes, Towns is one of the best jump shooters ever for his size, but he's attempting just 4.8 triples per game, his fewest since 2018-19. In that same vein, the Knicks as a team rank sixth in the NBA in 3-point accuracy, but just 28th in 3-point attempt rate.

The latter is a massive slide from last season, when they finished 11th in attempt rate. (This is undoubtedly where losing DiVincenzo, who launched a team-high 8.7 triples per night and finished with the NBA's third-most 3s last year behind Stephen Curry and Luka Doncic, stings New York most.)

The Celtics, Cavs and Thunder, by contrast, rank first, fourth and 15th in 3-point attempt rate, respectively. And the Knicks have been outmatched attempts wise in five of their seven games against those clubs, including all five of the showdowns with Boston and Cleveland.

"At the root of it all, it's math," an Eastern Conference scout said. "They're really efficient, and will win a ton of games. But the [3-point] volume isn't enough to beat the Clevelands and the Bostons. Especially when you also factor in that the Knicks are [offensive] rebounding and getting to the line a lot less than last year's team did."

There's one other area where the club's diminished results are hurting its ability to compete at the highest level.

THERE WAS THE blown 21-point second-half lead against the lowly Nets, who notched 40 points in the fourth quarter at the Garden in November. There was the improbable ending against the Atlanta Hawks last month, when the Knicks surrendered 76 points in the second half at home and somehow blew a six-point lead in the final 10 seconds of regulation to allow Atlanta to force overtime.

New York managed to squeak by in each outing, with the clutch Brunson nailing the deciding jumper both times and Bridges coming up with game-sealing blocks in the two victories. Still, as entertaining as the wins were, little about them felt Knicks-like in nature.

In beating a rebuilding Brooklyn club, New York gave up 122 points. The Knicks gave up 148 to the Hawks, 137 of which came in regulation. Yes, it's a new day for the up-tempo, sharpshooting league, and it isn't fair to expect defenses to hold opponents under 100 anymore, but with that in mind, the Knicks' identity appears to have shifted from one with a gritty, hard-nosed defense to one that now often hangs its hat on relentless scoring.

Against better competition, that approach isn't enough.

Take the January game at the Garden against the resurgent Pistons. New York was having no problem scoring that night, and traded baskets with Detroit for three quarters. Then came the fourth quarter, and the Knicks, who had shot 50% from 3 to that point, suddenly went cold, connecting on just 3-of-13 the rest of the way. (Amazingly, they still made nine of 10 shots from 2-point range in the final period.)

But the defense ultimately couldn't get stops when it needed to. Pistons All-Star Cade Cunningham, who finished with 29 points in the second half alone, got pretty much wherever he wanted, and the Pistons scored eight times in their final 13 possessions. The Knicks, desperate for a stop, cranked up the pressure to force the ball out of Cunningham's hands twice in the final minute, only for Detroit wing Malik Beasley to hit a pair of game-sealing triples.

"We're losing games I feel like we shouldn't be losing," Knicks guard Josh Hart said after the game. "If we want to be the team we're trying to be at the end of the season, we need to start correcting stuff now."

From Bridges' precipitous drop in trips to the line to the club's lack of spacing whenever Towns is off the floor to the starters' high-minute totals, there's plenty to analyze about the Knicks' shortcomings as a contender. But the one that stands out most, by far, is poor defense, an odd weakness for a Thibodeau-coached club this late in a season.

New York, ninth in the NBA on defense in 2023-24, finds itself 20th on that end thus far. The new-look Knicks showed encouraging improvement in December, posting top-five numbers after ranking 23rd in the league through November. But things have slipped rapidly in the months since, with New York ranking 16th in January before finishing 29th in February by surrendering a dismal 120.1 points per 100 possessions.

Perhaps the most troubling number of all for a team striving to contend for a title: The Knicks' defense also ranks 29th against top-10 offenses. Only the lottery-bound Raptors have hemorrhaged more points per 100 possessions against elite scoring clubs, per ESPN Research.

A huge chunk of that appears to stem from the drop scheme the Knicks often favor when defending pick-and-roll sets. New York, for instance, has utilized soft coverage against Boston's ball screens 48% of the time, a far higher rate than any other club against the Celtics, who are on a historic pace from a 3-point-attempt standpoint.

The result through three games: Boston has scorched the Knicks for 134 points per 100 plays in those scenarios, more than the Celtics have scored against any team using drop coverage. It feeds into yet another problem area: New York ranks last in opponent 3-point percentage.

Thibodeau, asked about the club's issues in defending the arc, said he generally focuses more on making sure his group limits attempts rather than the opponents' 3-point percentage. (For the season, the Knicks have allowed the fifth-fewest 3-point tries in the league.) But a plain look at the numbers against the primary contenders -- 53% of Boston's shots against the Knicks this season have been from deep, while Cleveland checks in at 42% -- would suggest New York has plenty of schematic work to do against the cream of the crop.

Part of the issue is how easily elite teams have scored on Towns. Those top-10 offenses have shot 62% on when Towns is the closest defender, the worst mark in the league among players who have contested at least 300 attempts. Largely because of that, whenever the Knicks' defense collapses to seal off the paint, it often results in the opposing club making a simple kick-out pass for an open look from the corner or wing.

There's reason to believe things could improve a bit over the final month of play. Center Mitchell Robinson, who, when healthy, has been a solid paint deterrent and a good enough athlete to step out and defend ball handlers on the perimeter, returned to the lineup in Memphis on Friday after a seasonlong absence following his ankle surgery in May. Thibodeau will almost certainly pair him with Towns at times to see whether that alignment -- one that would look closer to what Towns had in Minnesota with elite rim protector Rudy Gobert -- can do better.

But at this point, with the regular season's hourglass emptying and New York seemingly miles behind the Cavs and the Celtics in the title race, despite being in fourth place in the leaguewide standings, something has to give.

Great Britain have been handed an away tie against Poland as they look to avoid relegation from the top tier of the Davis Cup.

Leon Smith's side, seeded fourth in the draw, face the unseeded Poles in a World Group I best-of-five tie in September.

The winners will progress to the first qualifying phase of the 2026 event and maintain their chances of reaching the eight-team finals later that year.

Poland are likely to be led by 2021 Wimbledon semi-finalist Hubert Hurkacz, who is currently their only player ranked inside the men's top 100.

Britain face the play-off tie after losing to Japan in this year's first qualifying phase.

Without injured US Open semi-finalist Jack Draper, a makeshift British side were beaten 3-2 - jeopardising their place in the top tier of the men's team event.

The draw for the World Group I ties was held on Thursday - a week later than originally planned because of Chile's protests following their controversial tie against Belgium.

Ireland: Keenan; Osborne, Henshaw, Aki, Lowe; Prendergast, Gibson-Park; Porter, Sheehan, Bealham; McCarthy, Beirne; O'Mahony, Van der Flier, Doris (capt).

Replacements: Herring, Healy, Clarkson, Ryan, Conan, Baird, Murray, Crowley.

France: Ramos; Penaud, Barassi, Moefana, Bielle-Biarrey; Ntamack, Dupont (capt); Gros, Mauvaka, Atonio; Flament, Guillard; Cros, Boudehent, Alldritt.

Replacements: Marchand, Baille, Aldegheri, Meafou, Auradou, Jegou, Jelonch, Lucu.

Jose Mourinho has again denied that his comments in the aftermath of Fenerbahce's derby clash with Galatasaray were racially motivated, saying his words would have been understood if they knew of his African connections.

The Turkish Football Federation (TFF) handed Mourinho a four-game ban and a small fine after he referred to the Galatasaray bench "jumping around like monkeys." The ban was later halved and the fine reduced.

Galatasary saif they would "initiate criminal proceedings" for what they described as "racist statements." In response, Mourinho and Fenerbahce have began their own legal action, seeking to recoup 1.907 million Turkish lira ($52,000) -- a symbolic figure to represent the year that Fenerbahce were founded (1907).

In an interview with Sky Sports published on Thursday, Mourinho addressed the incident, saying he felt attacked.

"They were not clever in the way they attacked me, because they didn't know my past," Mourinho said. "They didn't know my connections with Africa, with African people and African players and African charities.

"So instead of going against me, I think it boomeranged and went against them.

"Everyone knows who I am as a person. Everybody knows my bad qualities, but that is not one of my bad qualities. Exactly the opposite.

"The most important thing is I know who I am, and the attack accusing racism was a bad choice."

Fenerbahce host Rangers on Thursday in the first leg of their Europa League round-of-16 tie.

Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk has hailed the togetherness of his team in their 1-0 victory over Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday but insists they will have to "fight" in next week's second leg in order to secure qualification for the quarterfinals of the Champions League.

Substitute Harvey Elliott scored a late winner for Liverpool at the Parc des Princes after PSG had dominated the first leg of their round-of-16 tie.

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia thought he had given the hosts the lead in the first half before his curling effort was ruled out for offside, while Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker turned in an heroic display to preserve his side's clean sheet.

"I think you could see, it was not a usual game we like to play because we obviously like to dominate as well," Van Dijk said after the match.

"We like to have more influence, especially with the ball, than we had but we knew before the game this could be a scenario in terms of the fact, they could have the ball a lot more and we would have to find a way to create chances.

"At times you saw it could be wide open if you made the right decisions but most of it was defending as one unit and stopping them from scoring and Ali [Alisson] obviously played a big part in that.

"What I really liked was the togetherness, everyone put a shift in, and we know everyone can be better.

"We don't want to be playing this way because everyone who plays football wants to have the ball a lot and wants to be dominating opponents but we played against a team with a lot of quality, world-class quality and they made it very difficult for everyone in the world so far and they made it difficult for us but we found a way and we have to try to finish it off next week.

"It will be a difficult task but we are at home with our fans and we have to fight -- and we will."

Reflecting on Alisson's display, Van Dijk added: "Listen, he's the best goalkeeper in the world -- I've mentioned it many times in the past and he showed it again on the biggest stage.

"A lot of shots from distance but he was there to save us and we put ourselves in a good position for next week but we all know this is far from over.

"They are an outstanding team with an outstanding manager and they come to Liverpool with the belief they can turn this around and we have to be ready for a very big task and we will be."

THE SLOW, PROTRACTED death of the Oakland A's played out over two decades, offering a fresh blueprint of how to torpedo a professional sports franchise. The slow, protracted march of the Tampa Bay Rays toward a similar outcome is playing out in real time. And both serve as warnings to the rest of the sport that when it comes to the pursuit of new stadiums, major league dreams can end up in minor league parks.

The A's quest to secure a new stadium in the Bay Area repeatedly ended in failure. They eventually gave up and pivoted their attention to Las Vegas, where they plan to move for the 2028 season. In the meantime, they are asking to be called, simply, the A's, even though they'll spend the next three years squatting in West Sacramento, California.

While the destruction of Tropicana Field's roof in October by Hurricane Milton forced the Rays to seek refuge for 2025 at a minor league stadium across the bay in Tampa, Florida, many of the same issues -- chief among them a relationship with local politicians drowned by distrust -- have left the Rays with a deal for a new stadium they could abandon any day and a future defined by its uncertainty.

For now, the teams find themselves in the same purgatory, caught between the stadiums they yearned to desert and the gleaming, billion-dollar palaces about which they fantasize. The A's and Rays will spend the 2025 season playing in minor league ballparks about one-third the size of a standard Major League Baseball stadium.

Earlier this spring, commissioner Rob Manfred called the minor league parks "intimate" and "charming," real estate euphemisms instantly recognizable to anyone who has looked at too-small houses and apartments. It's not just the size of the ballparks, either. Temperatures in Sacramento regularly climb into the triple digits in the summer, and Sutter Health Park lacks the roof of big league parks in other scorching cities. In lieu of playing at the Trop, the Rays will spend 2025 at the open-air Steinbrenner Field and contend with summer rains that threaten to destabilize their schedule.

The A's and Rays are cautionary tales of what happens when big, complicated challenges are met with half-measures and inaction -- and reminders to teams with unsettled stadium issues in places like Chicago and Kansas City, Missouri, that the longer they take to reach resolution, the messier these situations get. With every city council meeting that ends with no deal, every local voting result that kicks the can down the road to the next election, every ballpark rendering torn up before a shovel ever enters the dirt, the likelihood of best-laid plans being replaced by worst-case scenarios multiplies.

For the Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals -- two teams angling for public money to help finance new stadiums -- there are countless lessons to learn about the fragility of deals and their capacity to go sideways. Already there has been resistance to the White Sox's request of $1 billion to help build a new stadium in the South Loop, and voters in Kansas City last year rejected a sales-tax extension that would have helped fund a downtown ballpark. Public cynicism over using tax dollars to fund billionaire owners' real estate plays has made turning visions of a new stadium into reality that much more difficult and the ramifications of letting a potentially volatile situation decay that much greater.

The upshot of stadium volatility goes beyond the teams and extends to the league. While Manfred has said he wants the league to expand from 30 to 32 teams before his planned retirement in January 2029, the instability of the A's and Rays has prompted MLB to pause laying out any expansion timeline.

For all the good in the game in Manfred's time as commissioner -- the generation of notable stars, the success of the pitch clock, the excellent early returns on the automated ball-strike challenge system -- the sight of two big league teams existing in small stadiums is rich with subtext. And with a labor negotiation expected to threaten games in 2027, a widespread dissatisfaction among fans about MLB's competitive balance and a local-television landscape in need of overhaul, the challenges in Manfred's final four years as commissioner go well beyond the perception that comes with shrunken stadiums.

Teams have weathered minor league ballparks before. The Toronto Blue Jays called Buffalo, New York, home in the 2020 and 2021 seasons because of COVID restrictions. The Montreal Expos spent about a quarter of their games in 2003 and 2004 in Puerto Rico before moving to Washington, D.C. The A's played six games in Las Vegas in 1996 because of unfinished renovations at the Coliseum. Never, though, have two teams simultaneously endeavored to make big league ball work without big league stadiums. When the Rays and A's play their home openers in temporary residences later this month, it will mark uncharted territory for the sport.

FROM THE PERCH of I-175 just south of downtown St. Petersburg, Tropicana Field looks like a relic, a building whose inevitable fate is condemnation. Milton shredded 18 of the 24 fiberglass panels that comprised the structure's roof, and the beams that once supported them jut into the city's skyline. The Trop opened in 1990, and the hallmarks of its antiquity remain, highlighted by the lettering spelling out TROPICANA FIELD in Hobo typeface on the side of the stadium: a bygone font for a bygone edifice.

Three months before Milton and Hurricane Helene devastated the Tampa Bay area, the Rays finally believed that after 17 years of searching for a new stadium, they had found their future home: right where they'd been all along. On July 31, Rays officials and a group of local luminaries -- including St. Petersburg mayor Ken Welch -- gathered to announce a deal for a new $1.3 billion stadium on the same site as the Trop.

The franchise would finally have a home befitting of a club that has won more games than any team except the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees since that search began in 2008. Between the gleaming 30,000-seat stadium and the mixed-use development around the ballpark, the team would mimic the approach of the Atlanta Braves: leveraging baseball into a financial windfall from ownership of the surrounding land and businesses.

Optimism gushed from a news conference in which the parties celebrated a deal that would complement the Rays' $700 million investment with $600 million in public funds for a stadium to open by 2028. All of the failed efforts -- the $450 million waterfront plan in St. Petersburg hatched in 2007, the $900 million stadium in Tampa's Ybor City neighborhood that held up for barely a month in 2018, the ill-fated efforts to spend half the season in Tampa and the other half in Montreal -- were moot.

"We know the baseball team is going to be here," Rays president Matt Silverman said that day, "and it's going to be here forever."

Forever didn't even last a year. Today, the stadium is on the precipice of falling apart. The Rays have until March 31 to offer proof of their $700 million or abandon the deal. The latter would send the franchise into the sort of limbo not even the A's have faced. Following a delay in approving bonds and a subsequent public fight with county politicians, the Rays said the stadium's cost had increased significantly and requested additional public money to bridge the funding gap. Welch, the mayor who has been the foremost proponent of keeping the team in St. Petersburg, has said if the deal falls apart, the city will not revisit another. If that happens, there is no clear path to a stadium being built in Tampa. Rays owner Stuart Sternberg could sell the team. But Manfred has been vociferous in saying he does not want MLB to abandon the Tampa Bay area, even if the status quo is untenable.

Compounding the lack of clarity is the state of the Trop. The city's agreement with the Rays calls for it to replace the stadium's roof. Repairs are estimated to cost more than $50 million. The city said work could be done in time for the 2026 season, a notion the Rays contested before reversing course. Already the team's deal with the city for the Trop has been altered because of a clause that extends the contract by a year for every season the team doesn't play at the stadium. If it is not repaired by 2026, the agreement could run through 2029.

The specter of further ugliness -- litigation if the team walks away from the deal and the potential slowdown of Tropicana Field repairs -- leave the Rays a literal team without a home. Their executives are working out of rented office space in St. Petersburg. The Yankees retrofitting Steinbrenner Field for an AL East rival and moving their Single-A team, the Tampa Tarpons, to the complex's backfields is a one-year-only favor. Rays players, already on alert due to the team's propensity to trade those nearing free agency, wonder aloud what the lack of a home for 2026 and beyond means for their future.

With no obvious solution, multiple prominent Tampa-area businesspeople have started to put together ownership groups intent on attempting to buy the team, though no deal is close, sources told ESPN. The groups' belief, according to sources, is that Hillsborough County, where Tampa is located, would be more amenable to offering public funding for a new stadium to a local ownership group. (Sternberg lives on the outskirts of New York City.) The 2025 season could serve as a proof of concept, with the Rays expecting to pack the 11,026-seat stadium far more often than they did the Trop, which typically holds games with more of its 42,735 seats empty than filled.

"If not for Steinbrenner Field and the Yankees, I don't know what we would have done," Silverman told ESPN. "The quick yes from Hal Steinbrenner gave us peace of mind when we really needed it. I think there's real excitement for outdoor baseball in Tampa. The whole region is talking about it."

Tampa, long regarded as a better fit to draw fans in the Tampa Bay area, will see 42 of the team's first 65 games at home (a schedule stacking intended to avoid July and August, when rain regularly pelts the city). But it's tempered by the potential for the team's exodus from the region. In addition to a possible local ownership transfer, multiple groups weighing expansion bids have entertained the possibility of trying to buy the Rays from Sternberg, sources said. Doing so would allow a group to purchase a major league franchise for less than the expansion fee that Manfred estimated in 2021 at $2.2 billion. At the same time, it would require approval from MLB owners, a scenario fraught with potential peril on account of Manfred's dictate to keep baseball in the Tampa Bay area.

For all the hope that the coming weeks and months will offer a well-defined path for the Rays to follow, it's never that easy. One need only look at the tortuous journey of the A's to see why.

IN EARLY JANUARY, A's manager Mark Kotsay and four of the team's core players trekked to Sacramento for a look at their future home. They scarfed down a five-course meal at a local restaurant, visited a local coffee shop, meandered around a park, took in a double-overtime win by their NBA brethren Kings and toured Sutter Health Park to see firsthand how their next three years would look.

While at the Kings game, one of the players, designated hitter Brent Rooker, finalized a five-year, $60 million contract extension, the third-largest deal ever given out by the A's. The confluence of the visit and Rooker's signing was the latest sign that the not-Oakland A's planned to operate differently than the team that had caused such consternation with its abandonment of Oakland.

In the near-quarter-century since the A's first looked to move from a decaying Oakland stadium whose disrepair regularly made national news, the combination of miserly ownership and politicians unwilling to meet the team's demands led to what was once unthinkable: the A's following the Raiders from Oakland to Las Vegas. The A's final season in Oakland had a funereal air, with fans alternating between celebrating the rich history of the team's half-century in the city and regaling owner John Fisher with expletives and boos over his handling of MLB's first franchise relocation since the Montreal Expos absconded to D.C. in 2005.

Extending Rooker and handing the largest contract in franchise history to free agent right-hander Luis Severino -- a three-year, $67 million deal that helped fulfill the team's need to guarantee revenue-sharing money through increased spending -- signaled a shift toward normalcy for an organization that had brought the plot of "Major League" to life, only without the happy ending. After the A's agreed to a stadium deal in Las Vegas in 2023 amid simultaneous negotiations with Oakland -- whose mayor, Sheng Thao, was later indicted on unrelated federal bribery and conspiracy charges -- they focused on Sacramento, home of the San Francisco Giants' Triple-A affiliate, as a temporary stopgap.

Rather than agree to a $97 million extension fee that would have allowed the A's to stay at the Coliseum before moving to Las Vegas, they opted for Sacramento, which allowed the team to keep the majority of its $67 million-a-year local television contract. The A's have sold 6,500 season tickets -- including a three-year commitment for premium tickets -- and expect to have plenty of sellouts in a stadium with 10,624 seats and a capacity of 14,014, including a standing-room option on the grass berms in left and right field.

Still, there are constant reminders that Sutter Health Park is a minor league ballpark cosplaying a major league stadium. MLB and the MLB Players Association mandated improvements throughout the park, including upgraded clubhouses, lighting, trainer's rooms, weight rooms, a new batter's eye and the installation of a grass field. Beyond the playing surface, the ballpark has features that wouldn't normally fly in the majors, such as the clubhouses, batting cages and weight rooms -- places where players often spend time during the game -- being located past the outfield walls instead of attached to the dugout.

Even so, the A's are focused on being adaptable to their new home. Kotsay, who spent four of his 17 big league seasons with the A's and is entering his fourth season as manager, grew to love the Coliseum in spite of its flaws and hopes to do the same in Sacramento.

"Whether it was 3,000 or 7,000 in a midweek game, the energy was still great," Kotsay said. "That's the one thing that I can honestly say I'll miss, because even though there may not have been a lot of fans in the stands, the passion that they brought for us through the years was incredible. But I'm excited about Sacramento. I don't know really what to expect. I do know that we've sold the place out and that energy in itself will be awesome to witness."

With the contract extension securing his future, Rooker bought a house in Sacramento. In his three years at Mississippi State, Rooker played at the Bulldogs' Dudy Noble Stadium and LSU's Alex Box Stadium and Arkansas' Baum-Walker Stadium, all with capacities between 10,000 and 15,000, and lauded them for their atmosphere. It's an environment he hopes the A's -- whose young core could keep them in contention in a wide-open American League West division -- experience at their new home.

"It's going to be obviously a unique environment, a different environment than we're used to playing Major League Baseball games in," Rooker said. "But we think it's going to be people who are excited to be there and are there to support a new team ... so, we're looking forward to it."

GROUND STILL HASN'T been broken on the A's new stadium in Las Vegas, and if there's a lesson to be taken from their trials and travails as well as the Rays', it's that nothing is done until shovels hit the dirt. Manfred said Fisher told him the stadium -- whose cost has ballooned from $1.5 billion to $1.75 billion, with $380 million coming from the state of Nevada -- is still scheduled to open in 2028.

Skepticism about the project persists. The nine-acre plot on the former site of the Tropicana hotel would be the smallest footprint for any major league stadium. Renderings of the stadium are missing a bullpen for the visiting team. The A's intend to offer around 2,500 parking spaces -- one-third of what Clark County code mandates, with one space for every four seats in the planned 30,000-seat stadium.

Flaws and all, the team is surging forward and expects to start construction over the summer on a futuristic-looking building that plans to feature seats closer to the field than any other MLB stadium. Not only would a groundbreaking constitute a triumph for Fisher's maligned ownership, but it would also serve notice to other owners that the appeal of baseball remains strong enough to close a stadium deal, regardless of the ruin in its wake. At the same time, the cost to do so is profound. The A's attempt to secure a stadium is a case study in dysfunction. The Rays face years of ugliness ahead. The White Sox and Royals have already encountered roadblocks in their efforts.

Manfred remains undaunted, arguing that "the reality of today's economics is that either building or renovating a stadium almost by definition has to be a public-private partnership." The Diamondbacks found success in doing so. Last week, the Arizona House of Representatives passed a bill to divert $200 million in tax money to help a $500 million-plus renovation of Chase Field, where the Diamondbacks have a lease that runs out in 2027.

Other teams simply opted to stay where they are. The Los Angeles Angels, who play in the fourth-oldest ballpark in baseball, renewed their lease of Angel Stadium through 2032, with a pair of options that can extend it to 2038. The Angels had sought to buy the land surrounding the stadium to potentially build a new one, but an FBI investigation revealed Anaheim mayor Harry Sidhu had funneled confidential information to the team in hopes of receiving $1 million in campaign contributions. He later pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges and is awaiting sentencing.

Manfred's predecessor, Bud Selig, reinvigorated baseball throughout the 1990s and 2000s by encouraging what became a stadium boom. Those days are over, with the lessons of Oakland and Tampa Bay reminding teams of the manifold land mines around which they must tiptoe.

In almost everything it does, MLB moves at a languid pace. With the pitch clock and ABS, this behooved the league. With the collapse of the regional-sports-network model that provided billions of dollars annually for teams' local television rights, it left the league compromised. With new stadiums, it's clear: The longer the idea of one festers without closure, the likelier it is to see something major devolve into minor.

Carol Isherwood has been appointed as the first chair of The British and Irish Lions Women's Committee.

The former England and Great Britain international was a founding member of the Women's Rugby Football Union before acting as its first chair.

For her services to women's rugby, Isherwood was awarded an OBE in 2003 before later being inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame in 2014.

Her initial focus in her new role will be to oversee the inaugural Lions Women's tour to New Zealand in 2027.

Ieuan Evans MBE, Chair of The British & Irish Lions said: "This a hugely significant appointment ahead of our inaugural Lions Women's tour.

"Supporting the growth of the women's game is a key strategic priority and we are now writing yet more exciting chapters of Lions history, of which Carol becomes a key part. [She] has been a leading figure in women's rugby on and off the pitch and her unique insight will help guide us as we continue to build on the Lions legacy."

Isherwood added: "I feel privileged to chair The British and Irish Lions Women's Committee and join the Lions board at this very exciting time.

"Having worked in the women's game for more than four decades, alongside experiencing the first-ever Great Britain and England women's rugby teams, the Lions Women's team and tour provide another opportunity to showcase the women's game.

"I am looking forward to contributing in a meaningful way to make the inaugural tour in New Zealand a success and [exploring] how we can all work together to inspire and drive the continued growth of women's rugby."