NEW YORK (AP) — Seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady will join Fox Sports as its lead football analyst once his playing career ends, the network said Tuesday.

When that actually happens is unclear, because Brady recently changed his mind about retiring and said he plans to continue playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for his 23rd NFL season.

Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch made the announcement during a corporate investor call on Tuesday.

“Over the course of this long-term agreement, Tom will not only call our our biggest NFL games with Kevin Burkhardt, he will also serve as an ambassador for us, particularly with respect to client and promotional initiatives,” Murdoch said.

Murdoch said it's “entirely up to” Brady when he decides to retire from football and join Fox. Brady led the Buccaneers to a Super Bowl title following the 2020 season and NFC South championship last season. He teamed with coach Bill Belichick to win six Super Bowls during 20 seasons with the New England Patriots.

Fox recently lost its top football announcers, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, to ESPN. It replaced Buck with Burkhardt.

Murdoch offered no other details on the deal.

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The Southeastern Conference spring meetings will be held in person for the time since 2019 in a little less than two weeks.

It is unlikely two of the SEC's superstar coaches will be chumming around Destin, Florida, together.

Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher called Nick Saban a “narcissist” on Thursday after the Alabama coach accused the rival Aggies of using name, image and likeness deals to land their top-ranked recruiting classes.

Less than 24 hours after Saban said Texas A&M was essentially “buying” players, Fisher called an impromptu news conference to blast college football's most accomplished coach and his former boss at LSU.

“It’s despicable that a reputable head coach can come out and say this when he doesn’t get his way or things don’t go his way,” Fisher said in College Station, Texas. “The narcissist in him doesn’t allow those things to happen —- it’s ridiculous — when he’s not on top. And the parity in college football he’s been talking about? Go talk to coaches who have coached for him. You’ll find out all the parity. Go dig into wherever he’s been.”

Texas A&M had the consensus No. 1 recruiting class in the country for 2022 after beating Alabama during the regular season. The Tide’s class was No. 2. In his session which lasted about 10 minutes, Fisher declared: “We never bought anybody, no rules are broken. Nothing was done wrong.”

The Crimson Tide lost to the Aggies in 2021, but went on to win the SEC championship and play for the national title. The Aggies finished 8-4 in their fourth season under Fisher, who, like Saban, is among the highest-paid coaches in the game at more than $9 million per season.

The public spat is perhaps the ugliest display of the growing angst and concerns among college coaches who are wrestling with two big changes: The compensation era, launched last July, and its impact on recruiting, and the ease with which players can now transfer.

Saban, who has won six national championships and is widely regarded as one of the greatest coaches in the history of the game, has called the current state of affairs unsustainable. At an event in Birmingham, Alabama, he said some schools were spending “tons of money to get players.”

“You read about it, you know who they are," Saban said Wednesday. "We were second in recruiting last year. A&M was first. A&M bought every player on their team. Made a deal for name, image and likeness. We didn’t buy one player. But I don’t know if we’re going to be able to sustain that in the future, because more and more people are doing it. It’s tough.”

Fisher was an assistant under Saban in the early 2000s at LSU, working as offensive coordinator on the Tigers' 2003 national title team. That relationship is now badly damaged.

“We're done," Fisher said, adding Saban reached out by phone but he did not take the call. “He showed you who he is. He's the greatest ever, huh? When you got all the advantages, it's easy."

He said Saban's comments were insulting to Texas A&M and the families of the players who signed with the Aggies.

“Some people think they're God,” Fisher said. “Go dig into how God did His deal. You may find out about a guy, a lot of things you don’t want to know. We build him up to be this czar of football. Go dig into his past or anybody who's ever coached with him. You can find out anything you want to find out what he does and how he does it.”

“There’s a reason I ain’t went back and worked for him, with opportunities. I don’t want to be associated with him,” Fisher added.

Texas A&M plays at Alabama on Oct. 8, but Fisher and Saban won't have to wait that long to cross paths with the SEC meetings just around the corner.

“I don’t cheat. I don’t lie. If you did my old man slapped me across the face. Maybe someone should have slapped him (Saban),” Fisher said.

The 56-year-old Fisher won a national championship in 2013 as head coach at Florida State before receiving a 10-year contract for $75 million to leave Tallahassee for Texas A&M in 2017.

The NCAA lifted most of its rules barring athletes from earning money from sponsorship and endorsement deals last July, but there are concerns among many in college sports that NIL deals are being used to as recruiting inducements and de facto pay-for-play. Last week, the NCAA issued guidance to Division I members to clarify its rules against boosters being involved in recruiting.

In February, Fisher went off on competitors who were pushing rumors that Texas A&M had spent $30 million on NIL deals to land one the highest-rated recruiting classes in history.

The 70-year-old Saban was more targeted in his critique of the current state of college football then he has been in the past. He also mentioned Jackson State and Miami in his remarks.

Jackson State coach Deion Sanders, an Pro Football Hall of Famer, landed one of the top recruits in the country in cornerback Travis Hunter, who had been committed to Florida State until a signing day flip in December.

“We as a PEOPLE don’t have to pay our PEOPLE to play with our PEOPLE,” Sanders tweeted Wednesday night. Hunter also chimed in on social media.

As for Fisher, he said he's looking forward to the Destin meetings.

“I don't mind confrontation. Lived with it my whole life,” Fisher said. “Kind of like it myself. Backing away from it isn't the way I was raised.”

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NEW YORK (AP) — Minor league players and Major League Baseball have reached a settlement in a lawsuit alleging teams violated minimum wage laws.

Terms of the settlement were not filed with the court Tuesday and details were not released. Two people familiar with the negotiations, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the release of details was not authorized, said the sides in recent weeks had been discussing a possible settlement in the $200 million range.

“We are pleased to report that the parties have reached a settlement in principle in this over eight-year-old case, subject to court approval," lawyers for the players said in a statement. "We look forward to filing preliminary approval papers with the court and cannot comment further until then.”

The two sides asked the court for permission to file by July 11 for approval of the settlement.

The suit was filed in 2014 by first baseman/outfielder Aaron Senne, a 10th-round pick of the Marlins in 2009 who retired in 2013, and two other retired players who had been lower-round selections: Kansas City infielder Michael Liberto and San Francisco pitcher Oliver Odle. They claimed violations of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and state minimum wage and overtime requirements for a work week they estimated at 50 to 60 hours.

A trial had been scheduled to start June 1 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Several classes of players are part a of case involving laws in different states.

A letter filed with the court by lawyers for both sides asked Chief Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero to postpone a conference scheduled for Tuesday and the trial.

“The parties are pleased to inform the court that they have reached a settlement of the matter in principle,” the letter said. “The parties have agreed upon a confidential memorandum of understanding. The settlement is subject to ratification by the respective parties, and we are in the process of preparing the settlement documents."

The letter was signed by Elise M. Bloom of Proskauer Rose on behalf of MLB and by Clifford H. Pearson of Pearson, Simon & Warshaw and Stephen M. Tillery of Korein Tillery on behalf of the players.

Spero wrote in a pretrial ruling in March that minor leaguers are year-round employees who work during training time and found MLB violated Arizona's state minimum wage law and was liable for triple damages. Spero also ruled MLB did not comply with California wage statement requirements, awarding $1,882,650 in penalties.

He said minor leaguers should be paid for travel time to road game s in the California League and to practice in Arizona and Florida.

“These are not students who have enrolled in a vocational school with the understanding that they would perform services, without compensation, as part of the practical training necessary to complete the training and obtain a license,” Spero wrote.

The case was sent back to the District Court by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2019 after lawyers for the players and MLB spent years arguing whether it should receive class-action status.

Spero ruled MLB is a joint employer with teams of minor league players; that those players perform “work” during spring training; that travel time on team buses to away games is compensable under FLSA, Florida and Arizona law and that travel time by California League players to away games is compensable under California law.

In 2017, the players suing were defined as those with minor league contracts who played in the California League for at least seven straight days starting on Feb. 7, 2010 or Feb. 7, 2011, depending on state or federal claims; those who participated in spring training, extended spring training instructional leagues in Arizona starting Feb. 7, 2011; and those who participated in spring training, extended spring training instructional leagues in Florida starting Feb. 7, 2009.

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Bob Lanier, the left-handed big man who muscled up beside the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as one of the NBA’s top players of the 1970s, has died. He was 73.

The NBA said Lanier died Tuesday after a short illness. The Hall of Famer had worked for the league as a global ambassador. The Athletic reported in 2019 that Lanier was being treated for bladder cancer.

Lanier played 14 seasons with the Detroit Pistons and Milwaukee Bucks and averaged 20.1 points and 10.1 rebounds for his career. He is third on the Pistons’ career list in both points and rebounds. Detroit drafted Lanier with the No. 1 overall pick in 1970 after he led St. Bonaventure to the Final Four.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Lanier was among the most talented centers in league history, and added that his accomplishments went far beyond what he did on the court.

“For more than 30 years, Bob served as our global ambassador and as a special assistant to David Stern and then me, traveling the world to teach the game’s values and make a positive impact on young people everywhere,” Silver said in a statement. “It was a labor of love for Bob, who was one of the kindest and most genuine people I have ever been around.”

At 6-foot-10 and 250 pounds, Lanier was considered a big man during his time and used that bulk to his advantage.

“Bob Lanier will always be one of the big men of basketball,” Abdul-Jabbar said in a statement posted on social media. “Not just because of the size of his body but because of the size of his heart.”

Lanier went into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992. But his boat-size shoes got there ahead of him, with a display of his bronzed sneakers in the shrine.

He was known for wearing size 22 shoes, although that was disputed in 1989 by a Converse representative, who told The Atlanta Constitution that Lanier wore size 18 1/2.

“The 22 he was reputed to wear was a Korean size,” shoe rep Gary Stoken said.

Not contested was the abundantly clear fact that his feet were big.

“A lot of people can put both feet into one of my shoes,” Lanier told HOOP magazine.

Born Sept. 10, 1948, in Buffalo, New York, Lanier starred in college at St. Bonaventure, where he averaged 27.6 points and 15.7 rebounds in three seasons. The Bonnies made it all the way to the Final Four in 1970, but Lanier had injured his knee in the regional final, and St. Bonaventure lost in the national semifinals to Jacksonville.

Lanier overcame a litany of orthopedic injuries, dealing with shoulder, back, elbow, hand and toe problems during his career. But that didn’t prevent him from earning his place among the top NBA centers of his era. After being named to the all-rookie team in 1971, he averaged at least 21 points and 11 rebounds for each of the next seven seasons. Lanier was an eight-time All-Star and the MVP of the 1974 All-Star Game.

He remains the Pistons' franchise leader in scoring average at 22.7 points per game, beloved in Detroit for both his fierceness and friendliness.

“As fierce and as dominant as Bob was on the court, he was equally kind and impactful in the community,” the Pistons said. "As an ambassador for both the Pistons organization and the NBA, he represented our league, our franchise and our fans with great passion and integrity. We extend our heartfelt condolences to Bob’s family and friends.”

Lanier could beat opponents from the inside and the outside while ruling the boards. Although Abdul-Jabbar had a more famous hook shot, the sky hook, Lanier’s was very much a weapon.

“Guys didn’t change teams as much, so when you were facing the Bulls or the Bucks or New York, you had all these rivalries,” Lanier told NBA.com in 2018. “Lanier against Jabbar! Jabbar against Willis Reed! And then (Wilt) Chamberlain, and Artis Gilmore, and Bill Walton! You had all these great big men and the game was played from inside out.”

As exceptional as Lanier was, the Pistons won only one playoff series with him. He played 64 games or fewer in each of his last four full seasons with Detroit. In February 1980, he was traded to Milwaukee.

Lanier averaged fewer minutes with the Bucks, but he was part of Milwaukee teams that reached the Eastern Conference finals in 1983 and 1984, the final two seasons of his career.

“Even more than his basketball success, which included his being an All-Star in 1982, Bob was one of the most popular players with Bucks fans and known throughout the community for his generosity and kindness,” the Bucks said in a statement.

He also served as president of the players’ union during the final years of his career, with Silver saying that he played “a key role in the negotiation of a game-changing collective bargaining agreement.”

Lanier was Detroit’s career leader in points and rebounds before he was passed by Isiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer in those categories, and his single-game franchise record of 33 rebounds was topped by Dennis Rodman.

“All of us who love the game of basketball are hurting with the loss of Bob Lanier," Thomas said. “He was one of the greatest centers to play the game and one of the toughest and fiercest competitors.

“Just as he impacted the game on the court, Bob was one of the game’s greatest ambassadors. His class and caring for others set a great example for so many to follow."

In 1995, Lanier was an assistant coach for the Golden State Warriors, then took over as coach on an interim basis after Don Nelson resigned. Lanier went 12-25, and the Warriors found another coach after the season.

Lanier won the NBA’s J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award for the 1977-78 season for outstanding community service. Following his playing career, he helped start the NBA’s Stay in School campaign and participated in other outreach for the league.

“There’s so much need out here,” Lanier said. “When you’re traveling around to different cities and different countries, you see there are so many people in dire straits that the NBA can only do so much. We make a vast, vast difference, but there’s always so much more to do.”

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LONDON (AP) — Maybe it’s the ćevapi, or the souvlaki, or the mbanga soup.

Whatever it is, there’s no denying the tinge of international flavor when it comes to the NBA elite with Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic about to become the league's MVP for a second straight season, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press. The MVP has not been publicly announced by the league.

This will be the fourth consecutive year that a foreign-born player has been crowned MVP, another first for the NBA.

The Serbian big man beat out two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo of Greece and the reigning champion Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia center Joel Embiid of Cameroon to mark another first — never before have the top three in MVP voting all been internationals.

The NBA playoffs are loaded with international talent, including Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Doncic, the 2019 rookie of the year and EuroLeague champion from Slovenia.

The influx of international talent was former Commissioner David Stern's vision. He saw the NBA as a global entity and insisted the league be a driving force in growing the game internationally.

“It's David Stern's dream," Philadelphia coach Doc Rivers said. “Everybody else is good. It's a world game. It's no longer just ‘us,' whatever us means. It's a world game and that's a good thing."

The ripple of effect of international players extends well beyond the U.S.

For the basketball-mad countries of Serbia and Greece, the success of Jokic and Antetokounmpo means bragging rights. Antetokounmpo won back-to-back MVP awards (2018-19, 19-20), and now the pride of Sombor, Serbia, has matched him.

“We are a country of basketball. This is more proof that we are the best,” said Marko Ćosić, who trained a teenage Jokic as strength and conditioning coach at Belgrade club Mega. “It is not easy for a country like Serbia with 7 million people to compete with the rest of the world.”

Ćosić, now a professor at the University of Belgrade, said Jokic's style of play “is really poetry. .. he's an artist.” The 27-year-old Jokic averaged 27.1 points, 13.8 rebounds and 7.9 assists in the regular season.

Across NBA Europe’s social media channels, content featuring Antetokounmpo performs 100% better than the average post, according to the NBA. Jokic content does 10% better than average.

Subscriber growth for NBA League Pass shows a 17% increase in Serbia, 14% in Slovenia and 9% in Greece this season over last season. It was up 40% in Africa as a whole, though the NBA does not release its total number of subscribers.

The league has scheduled the Bucks and Atlanta Hawks to play two preseason matchups at Abu Dhabi in October, marking the NBA’s first games in the United Arab Emirates and the Arabian Gulf.

It’s impossible to overestimate the impact Antetokounmpo has had on Greece, both as a player and a person. He was born to immigrant Nigerian parents and only acquired a Greek passport shortly before being drafted in 2013.

“Giannis is a hero. He’s a good image of Greece. He’s an ambassador of Greece worldwide,” said Vassilis Skountis, a broadcaster for NBA games on Cosmote TV.

In Greek sports media, there’s soccer, basketball, and Giannis.

Yes, Antetokounmpo basically is his own category of news. There’s live coverage of games, no matter the hour in Greece, and analysis of his performances.

Parents love him, kids want to be like him.

“He’s Greek, he’s very spectacular, he’s very strong, he dunks, he wins championships, he’s playing with the national team," Skountis said. “The kids here in Greece, everybody wants to be like Giannis."

In Cameroon and around Africa, where soccer dominates, Embiid is a budding role model, as is Antetokounmpo.

“These kids coming from abroad ... they end up working twice as hard," said Joe Touomou, associate technical director at NBA Academy Africa. "When it’s time to compete, you see the result of that hard work. That’s why you see those three foreign guys at the top.”

The NBA is helping develop the sport in Africa, opening an academy and partnering with FIBA to run a Champions League-style competition for club teams.

Rivers has seen it, and raves about it.

“I went over to Africa a couple years ago, to Dakar, and it’s amazing. It really is," Rivers said. “The academy that the NBA runs in Africa is like no other.”

Basketball Without Borders plays a pivotal role, with annual camps showcasing prospects and exposing them to NBA players and coaching.

Embiid was a shy, skinny camper back in 2011.

“Quite frankly, Joel was not the best prospect that we had,” said Touomou, who is Cameroonian and a friend of Embiid’s family. But he had size, coordination “and he was fearless."

Embiid is reportedly interested in gaining French citizenship, which would make him eligible to play for France as the 2024 Paris Olympics approach. He’d likely be forgiven in Cameroon, which mostly cares about soccer.

In the basketball hotbeds of Europe, though, winning medals for the country is just as important as NBA success — possibly more.

Jokic helped Serbia win silver at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics but sat out the Tokyo Games qualifiers last summer, saying he was exhausted from his first MVP season. Serbia hosted the qualifying tournament but lost to Italy in the decisive game.

“Whatever issues he has playing for the Serbian team, all parties — the Serbian team, the basketball association and him — they need to work together to try to resolve it,” said Andrija Pavlovic, a basketball-loving Serb who lives in London. “We need him. We’ve had great success in the past. It’s a tradition we’re looking to extend."

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AP Basketball Writer Tim Reynolds in Miami contributed to this report.

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