Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman said he has worked hard to get NBA officials and owners interested in the arena.

He plans on having the Las Vegas City Council next week look at an exclusive contract with The Cordish Companies to start planning an arena.

"These are serious people. These are not people who are operating on a wing and a prayer," Goodman said. "Cordish has a proven track record. They don't have time to play games."

"I believe as soon as we have an arena ? this is my belief, I have nothing that is signed in blood, there's no contract ? but I believe we'll have a team," he said.

The mayor also said he was not ruling out a professional hockey team coming to town to play in the arena either.

"I don't know anything about hockey. I'm learning rugby now," he said, laughing. "I love basketball. So I thought about basketball. Whatever the market is gonna be, it's gonna be. There are a lot of great hockey fans here. The truth of the matter is that in many of these arenas they have both. ... I would hope they would have both because I think our constituents are entitled to both."