TALLAHASSEE – Florida State beach volleyball players Alexis Durish, Audrey Koenig and Carra Sassack earned CSC All-District Academic All-District honors Tuesday.

Selected by the College Sports Communicators, eligible student-athletes must be at least a sophomore athletically and have a cumulative 3.50 GPA to be considered. Durish, Koenig and Sassack will now move to the All-America ballot which will be announced July 8.

Durish, from Venice, Florida, and Koenig, from Wesley Chapel, Florida, went 24-9 on Court 1 for the Seminoles in 2025. The pair were first-team All-Americans from the AVCA, the CCSA co-Pair of the Year and earned All-CCSA honors and CCSA All-Tournament honors.

Durish and Koenig will represent the United States at the World University Games in Germany in late July and are currently training with the Beach Collegiate National Team in California.

Sassack, from Cumming, Georgia, was the NCAA Beach Volleyball Elite 90 Award winner, presented to the student-athlete with the highest GPA among each of the NCAA’s 90 championship sports. The junior went 21-13 in 2025, including a 15-11 mark on Court 3.

For more information on the Florida State beach volleyball program, check Seminoles.com and follow us on social media at fsubeachvolleyball (IG) and @FSU_BeachVB (X).

Major League Baseball has struck a partnership deal with Jomboy Media, the sports content company that rose to prominence through viral lip-reading videos and now boasts 2 million YouTube subscribers.

The partnership comes as MLB seeks to reach younger audiences through authentic digital content creators. Jomboy Media recorded 93 million social media engagements last year and has grown since its humble beginnings as a hobby podcast in 2017.

Co-founder Jake Storiale said the company never envisioned reaching this scale when he and Jimmy O’Brien started their weekly Yankees podcast.

“The original dream was maybe like the kooky spring training guys or something like that,” Storiale said during an appearance on “CBS Mornings Plus” Monday. “And now it’s turned into a 60-person business.”

The deal represents years of parallel work between the organizations, according to Courtney Hirsch, the CEO of Jomboy Media and O’Brien’s sister, who helped broker the partnership. 

“We both have the same mission to grow the game and to serve baseball fans,” Hirsch said. “It took years in the making.”

What finally pushed the partnership over the finish line after years of discussions was the growing influence of digital content creators in sports, Hirsch said.

“I think the power of content creators is really undeniable, and the impact that they’re having on sports,” she said. “Major League Baseball recognizes that it’s important to have authentic voices speaking to fans, and then also creating content on digital platforms like we do to reach people where they’re at and create new fans because that’s really our superpower.”

Jomboy Media has expanded beyond baseball commentary to include multiple podcasts, TV shows and warehouse games featuring backyard-style sports competitions. The company’s breakdown videos, which often include lip-reading analysis of on-field conversations and confrontations, have become particularly popular for bringing viewers closer to the action.

“Sports is the best reality television still,” Storiale said. “The breakdown videos that Jimmy does, I mean it brings you on the field and that’s kind of what fans want.”

The company name originated from an iPhone autocorrect error that changed “Jimmy” to “Jomboy,” which O’Brien adopted as his social media handle on his mother’s advice to use a nickname online, Hirsch said.

Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed.

Last week, French fashion house Louis Vuitton announced a partnership with Real Madrid, establishing a formal association between arguably the world’s most recognisable luxury clothing brand and European football’s most storied club.

Louis Vuitton is not the first luxury label to make the crossover into the sport.

Manchester City announced an agreement with Italy’s C.P. Company in 2024, which became their official fashionwear partner. That followed the club’s long-term deal with Dsquared², which started in 2016 before ending in their treble-winning 2023 season, where City players and manager Pep Guardiola would arrive at away matches in the Champions League wearing outfits made by that designer brand.

It is not just City, though — there are countless examples of similar deals in the Premier League.

Tottenham Hotspur’s victorious Europa League squad arrived at the stadium for that final last month wearing suits designed by Kiton, the Italian company that has been the club’s official formalwear partner since 2023. Their north London neighbours Arsenal have recently looked more locally for style inspiration, collaborating with Labrum London, whose founder Foday Dumbuya is an Arsenal supporter, on last season’s away kit and an accompanying lifestyle collection.

It is increasingly common around wider Europe, too.

In Italy’s Serie A, Juventus have partnered with Loro Piana since 2021, and Milan collaborated with Off-White for last season’s fourth kit. Madrid themselves previously had an association with Zegna, so they are not breaking new ground in collaborating with an esteemed designer brand.

This new deal is reportedly worth up to €7million (£5.9m; $8.1m at current rates), although a Real Madrid source — who did not wish to be named as they did not have permission to discuss its terms — described that figure as “optimistic”.

Either way, the prestige of Louis Vuitton, one of the world’s most recognisable symbols of luxury in fashion, is singular.

Milan forward Santiago Gimenez in last season’s fourth kit, designed by Off-White (Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images)

“These have been happening for years now, it shows a shift on both sides,” says sports business consultant and journalist Daniel-Yaw Miller. “Not just in the way clubs see themselves, but in how brands see themselves.

“There’s so much synergy between iconic fashion brands and football clubs. They’re huge cultural entities with so much history and heritage — like how fashion houses have their heritage tied to collections, football clubs have so much history tied to their kits, aesthetic and badges over time. It’s the same as how fashion houses look at patterns and designs over time.”

Louis Vuitton is no stranger to the world of football either. It created a commemorative ball for the 1998 World Cup in its homeland of France and has designed the tournament trophy’s travelling case since 2010.

American music artist Pharrell Williams has served as its men’s creative director since 2023, and football stars including Jude Bellingham, Marcus Thuram, Jadon Sancho, Jules Kounde and Madrid’s marquee summer 2025 signing Trent Alexander-Arnold were in attendance at his first runway show. Williams even included a pair of “football trainers” in their spring/summer collection this year, retailing at an eyewatering £885 ($1,200).

Five years before their current owners at Qatar Sports Investment bought Paris Saint-Germain in 2011, the Ligue 1 club released an away kit inspired by Louis Vuitton’s colours and design — albeit without an official link to the brand.

Given their shared home city and emphasis on fashion, PSG may also have been a prime candidate for the company’s first official club partnership. Still, Miller says Madrid’s prestige and the large personal brands of their star players make it an obvious match.

“Louis Vuitton has always had small relationships in sport,” says Miller. “Whether that’s creating trophy cases or limited releases around prestigious occasions. But a few years ago, LVMH, Louis Vuitton’s parent company, decided that sport would be its one major cultural push.

“You saw that with their strategy around the Olympics (held in Paris and across France last August), where they were a premium sponsor and paid big amounts to have their brand visible. They paid (a reported) $1billion to sponsor Formula One for 10 years. But if you want to show up on a global stage, you want to be associated with football.

“They started working similarly to how they did with Formula One, informally dressing Jude Bellingham for certain events before making him an official ambassador, like they did with Lewis Hamilton (who became an ambassador for Dior, another brand under the LVMH banner, in 2024). Then, if you want to be in football, there’s no bigger entity than Real Madrid.”

Bellingham partnered with Louis Vuitton last summer, following his England team-mate Jack Grealish signing a seven-figure deal to become a Gucci ambassador in 2022. Bellingham — who is also linked to Skims, a clothing brand founded by Kim Kardashian — was the third major athlete to sign as a “friend of the house” after current Wimbledon and French Open tennis champion (and known madridista) Carlos Alcaraz and NBA basketball star Victor Wembanyama, who was raised in a suburb of Paris. Last year, fellow Real Madrid fan Rafael Nadal combined with long-time rival Roger Federer for a photoshoot organised by Louis Vuitton in the Italian Dolomites.

Jude Bellingham for Louis Vuitton. The Maison and @Pharrell are pleased to welcome English footballer @BellinghamJude as the newest Friend of the House — embarking on a collaborative adventure in Menswear.#JudeBellingham #PharrellWilliams #LouisVuitton pic.twitter.com/KwIJolDiNg

— Louis Vuitton (@LouisVuitton) August 16, 2024

Bellingham is one of several superstar players at Madrid whose celebrity has transcended football. Kylian Mbappe is one of the world’s most famous athletes. Fellow forward Vinicius Junior is one of the faces of the Brazil national team with more than 50million Instagram followers, and newcomer Alexander-Arnold, who is frequently spotted at major fashion and sporting events, also represent much more from a branding perspective.

“Madrid have a lot of players who are loved by Gen Z audiences,” says Jordan Clarke, founder of Footballer Fits, an Instagram page with more than 800,000 followers which celebrates the relationship between football and fashion.

“Louis Vuitton is such a prestigious brand, and they’ve historically not targeted these audiences. But I think with the likes of Vinicius, Bellingham, Mbappe, (their team-mate Eduardo) Camavinga, they’re reaching new audiences with the love people have for these athletes. It’s a valid seal of approval for these brands for the youth.

“The athletes of today, especially those high-profile Madrid players, are almost creatives themselves. They’re going to be posting content onto their socials wearing Louis Vuitton, taken from the players themselves on their iPhones. That makes it a player-backed brand.”

Louis Vuitton will hope to capitalise on Madrid players’ global profiles (Louis Vuitton x Real Madrid Partnership Images)

This summer’s Club World Cup in the United States will be the first opportunity for the record 15-time European champions to show off this new collaboration.

According to the blurb in the accompanying press release, “the collection will be worn by the teams and includes tailored garments, shoes, accessories and luggage,” and the items will be worn at major travel opportunities and events.

LVMH has reported first-quarter revenues of €20.3billion (£17.3bn/$23.5bn at current rates) last month, down two per cent on the same period in 2024. Part of that is due to a five per cent sales decrease in the company’s fashion and leather goods division, with Europe being the only market that posted growth (two per cent). According to Miller, pushing the brand in front of new demographics is how LVMH is trying to drive a new wave of enthusiasm around its flagship brand.

“For a long time, luxury fashion houses have operated on the belief that the exclusivity of their brand will drive enough business to generate profit, despite the high price point,” says Miller. “But in the last three or four years, luxury brands have struggled to keep up. Sales and profits have been declining, so LVMH is looking for new cultural avenues to drive excitement.”

In front of a new audience in America, perhaps there’s no better time for Louis Vuitton to announce the partnership as Madrid aim to become the first winners of FIFA’s revamped, greatly expanded and rescheduled Club World Cup.

Additional reporting: Mario Cortegana and Guillermo Rai

(Top photo: Madrid’s Eder Militao, Thibaut Courtois and Vinicius Jr in their new suits; Louis Vuitton x Real Madrid Partnership Images)

GREENWOOD, Ind. (June 17, 2025) – The University of North Alabama beach volleyball team collected four more postseason honors on Tuesday, with Katy Floyd, Ryenne Gepford, Selma Robinson and Lucy Wedding all selected to the College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-District Team.

This marks another solid postseason haul for the Lions, as the top-flight duo of Floyd and Robinson add to their Atlantic Sun Conference Pair of the Year honor and First Team All-ASUN selections with their first-career CSC Academic awards. Gepford earns the academic distinction for the second-straight year, while Wedding receives her first career postseason award.

To be eligible for the team, the student-athletes must be at least a sophomore academically and athletically while having at least a 3.50 cumulative GPA on a 4.0 scale. Players also must be in the lineup for 70 percent of all matches played during the season.

Floyd, Robinson, Gepford and Wedding were key pieces from this past season, helping the Lions finish with 18 wins and a berth in the ASUN Conference Tournament. The four also helped UNA secure two wins in the postseason championship.

The No. 1 pair all season, Floyd and Robinson combined for a 22-10 overall record with a 9-1 mark in conference play. The two earned the program’s first ASUN Pair of the Year, along with both players setting career milestones on the season. Robinson surpassed the 50 career win mark, while Floyd become the program’s all-time career wins leader. Floyd’s final win tally rests at 88 while Robinson is fourth all-time with 69 victories.



Gepford’s senior season concluded with a 17-14 record with a 6-4 mark in the ASUN. Playing all her matches from the second flight, her season highlight came on opening day with a flight-two win over No. 6 Florida State. Gepford additionally was named to the 2025 ASUN All-Tournament Team.

For Wedding, her first career beach volleyball honor comes after a 12-12 season with a 5-2 record in conference play. She and partner Mabrey Whitehead helped claim a fifth-flight win against No. 16 Georgia State on the season, also securing a win over Jacksonville in the ASUN Tournament opening round.

Floyd and Robinson will also be up for vote in the CSC Academic All-America voting pool, which is selected by sports information directors across the nation. The two look to become the second and third player in program history to achieve the feat, looking to follow behind the program’s first winner in Spring 2023 — former standout Paula Klemperer.

The All-America team will be announced Wednesday, July 8.

For more information on North Alabama Athletics, visit www.roarlions.com and follow UNA Athletics on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.