MILWAUKEE — Now that Major League Baseball has gotten tough on steroids, it can focus on other business affecting the game.

Such as, the sale of the Washington Nationals.

Negotiations with Washington officials on a stadium lease are continuing and could be resolved next week, clearing the way for the league to transfer ownership of the Nationals to private investors.

"There are still some fundamental economic differences," Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating office, said Wednesday after the first day of an owners' meeting. "We've said all along our goal is get a lease and we're going to continue to work on it. I don't think it'll be done Friday. We're probably looking at next week."

Baseball's other 29 clubs bought the Nationals, then known as the Montreal Expos, in 2002 and announced in September 2004 it was moving it to Washington. Eight groups are hoping to buy the team, and commissioner Bud Selig has already interviewed five of them. He'll meet with the remaining three after the owners meeting.

But DuPuy said baseball won't pick new owners until a lease deal is in place.

"We will be prepared to select ownership as soon as the lease obligation is done," DuPuy said.

Baseball is balking at Washington's request for guaranteed rent, believed to be about $6 million a year. Taxpayers are funding most of the $535 million ballpark on the Anacostia River, south of the U.S. Capitol, and the rent guarantee is designed to protect the district in the event the stadium is shut down by a work stoppage, natural disaster or terrorist attack.

District officials also have asked baseball for a letter of credit.

"We haven't secured it in other stadium deals," DuPuy said. "There's no issue to the creditworthiness of baseball. We don't feel it's appropriate to change what we bargained for in the first place.

"We agreed to the payment, the amount," he added. "It's the nature of the payment."

Stadium financing has been a contentious issue since the Nationals moved. Baseball even threatened to back out of Washington after the District of Columbia Council amended the original stadium funding agreement to require that half the construction costs be privately paid. The council eventually approved the legislation necessary to build the park.

The Nationals are playing at RFK Stadium until the new ballpark is finished.

"These are economic issues that should get resolved," DuPuy said. "There are creative solutions to every problem. Hopefully between the lending institutions and the city, we'll be able to find creative solutions."

While at the meetings, owners also will:

— Get an update on the World Baseball Classic, to be played March 3-20.

— Transfer control of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays from founding owner Vince Naimoli to Stuart Sternberg.

— Discuss ratification of baseball's tough new drug policy, which includes a 50-game suspension for a first positive steroid test.

"We're going to talk about that. It's obviously not on the agenda, but I hope we will, yes," Selig said when asked if owners might ratify the policy before leaving Thursday.

Spurred by the threat of legislation, players and owners agreed Tuesday to toughen their penalties for steroid use. In addition to the initial 50-game suspension, players would miss 100 games for a second offense and face a lifetime ban for a third.

The sport's current penalties are a 10-day suspension for a first offense, 30 days for a second offense and 60 days for a third. The earliest a player could be banned for life is a fifth offense.

The agreement will also have to be ratified by the players.

"Yesterday was a day I was proud to be commissioner of baseball," Selig said. "We had a problem and we did something about it. We had a problem. The sport had a problem. This is a problem that had to be solved. If not, somebody else was going to solve it in a more draconian way."