For the first time since its founding in 1956, Cor Jesu Academy has added water polo to its athletic offerings. Though monumental for the school itself, the team is making regional history as the first and only all-girls private school water polo team in St. Louis that is not co-opted with another high school. 

“I think it’s really cool to be a part of history,” freshman Mia Tettamble said.

This all came to be thanks to Cor Jesu’s swim coach, Qi Franz, her son, Mark Franz, and a few inquisitive parents. 

Qi explained that a few years ago, a family from the area involved with water polo came to Cor Jesu for an open house. They inquired about water polo at Cor Jesu, as their son’s private high school had a team, wanting the same experience for their daughter. 

“I told the AD (athletic director), we’re going to have water polo. You have a coach, you have swimmers, just get going,” Qi said.

To form the inaugural team, Qi began with recruiting the Cor Jesu swim team, then looked to contact sports athletes wanting to try something new in order to find players not as intimidated by aggression.

“I didn’t come from the swim team, so it’s a little more challenging, the swimming aspect of it. But the aggressiveness was kind of right up my alley because I played a lot of soccer,” freshman Claire Madsen said.

Since its formation this winter, the team’s skills have grown exponentially, with almost every player on the 10-man team scoring against well-established, large teams in the area at least once. Couple this with the fact that the entirety of Cor Jesu’s had never played the sport before February makes this season that much more impressive, despite their losing record.

“Our team is (pretty much a) JV team, everybody’s brand new, with no knowledge (of the sport before this season),” Qi said. “They’re getting better. They’re having more fun.”

“It’s really cool to see that the girls took a leap of faith, playing a sport that they’ve never done before,” Mark, who played water polo when he was in high school at SLUH, added. “Coming from swimming, they don’t make contact. It’s hard to get in the mindset of doing something with the ball before it comes to you, having something planned out. It was a lot of panicking at the beginning of the season, but (as) the season went on, people are a lot more comfortable. It’s pretty cool to see.”

As the team is currently made up of 10 members, with seven playing at any given point during each game, Cor Jesu water polo hopes to grow its numbers next season and for seasons to come.

“Some days we have negative one subs,” senior Sophia Spivey, one of the team’s captains and the only goalie, joked. 

“I think through social media and talking about it, people have heard more about our team, and a lot of people at our school want to join it next year,” junior Nora Cooke, one of the team’s captains, said. “When they talk about it on our CJATV broadcast system in the morning, everyone’s like, ‘oh, I want to do water polo,’ so I think the team will actually grow a lot next year.”

In the meantime, to prepare for a successful second year, the team plans on practicing and enhancing their newfound skills during the off-season. Many will also compete in summer swim leagues, keeping their swimming strength up.

Though the future looks bright for Cor Jesu water polo, not all members of the inaugural team will be there for it as seniors – and captains – Spivey and Ella Kuntz graduate this month from Cor Jesu.

“It feels absolutely spectacular,to be a captain of the first-ever all-girls school water polo team in St. Louis,” Spivey said.

Link

Link

Link

Allianz is recognized as a leading insurance and asset management company globally. It serves over 125 million clients across more than 70 countries, illustrating its extensive reach and influence in the insurance sector.

The company is deeply engaged with several sports entities across diverse disciplines, including multi-sport games, soccer, and motorsport. Allianz views sports sponsorship as an effective marketing tool that resonates with both existing and potential customers, fostering positive brand perceptions and strengthening brand preference.

According to GlobalData, Allianz is currently involved in 42 separate agreements worth $142.1 million per year. A core element of Allianz’s sponsorship strategy is securing naming rights to prominent sports stadiums across various continents, including Europe, North America, South and Central America, and Oceania.

These naming rights agreements signify the brand’s approach to achieving global reach with local impact, aiming to bolster brand presence in specific markets and forge stronger connections with local communities. To date, Asia has not been a priority market for the brand for sports sponsorship.

The most recent naming rights agreement the company has secured is a multi-year deal in England with the Rugby Football Union (RFU), reportedly worth £10 million annually, which is equivalent to $12.8 million annually based on GlobalData’s conversion methodology.

This agreement designates Allianz as title sponsor of the RFU’s Twickenham home, which has now been renamed Allianz Stadium Twickenham. Allianz appears to have come to the aid of the RFU, which reported unprecedented losses of £37.9 million for the 12 months ending in June 2024.

Allianz continues to seek expansion in various territories, including Asia. The company’s asset management division, AllianzGI, received approval in 2019 from the China Securities Regulatory Commission to operate as a foreign-owned public fund management company in mainland China. This move is significant for Allianz, as it allows the company to tap into one of the largest and fastest-growing markets in the world, enhancing its asset management services in Asia.

India is another target for Allianz as a growth market, despite the company selling to the Bajaj Group its 26% stake in non-life and life insurance joint ventures with Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company and Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Company. Allianz has stated that it still plans to explore new opportunities to strengthen its position in the insurance sector across India, both as an investor and an operator.

Looking at India’s insurance sector, the country is expected to have the third-largest economy globally by the end of the decade. This impressive economic growth will generate rising disposable incomes, with many Indian citizens seeking to increase their financial and risk awareness, which will boost insurance demand nationwide.

The Indian insurance sector, particularly the general insurance industry, is projected to experience significant growth in the coming years.

According to GlobalData, the general insurance industry is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.9%, increasing from INR 3.35 trillion (approximately $40.36 billion) in 2024 to INR 4.89 trillion (around $57.3 billion) by 2028, based on gross written premiums (GWP).

In the next five years, India is expected to develop at the fastest rate among the Group of 20 (G20) nations.

A significant way for Allianz to enhance its brand visibility in India would be to secure a naming rights agreement with one of the nation’s most popular cricket stadiums.

With cricket often described as a religion in India, associating the Allianz brand with one of the country’s most renowned stadiums could be a crucial way to engage with their target audience. Over 600 million people in India watch cricket, representing a substantial portion of the nation’s total sports audience.

The commercial value of cricket in India, particularly through the IPL, is not only significant but also poised for further growth.

The combination of high match valuations, with the per-game value of domestic TV rights reaching approximately $13.78 million for matches between 2023 and 2027, extensive sponsorship deals, and the potential for further growth of the women’s IPL competition contributes to a thriving cricket economy. This underscores the potential benefits for Allianz in being associated with Indian cricket.

Since 2016, GlobalData estimates that the largest annual deal involving an insurance company and an Indian sports property is the active agreement between SBI Life Insurance and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), worth an estimated $5 million per year. The Indian life insurance company based in Mumbai serves as the official partner of the BCCI for both domestic and international home cricket.

GlobalData reports that Allianz’s 42 current sponsorship deals worldwide are spread across 11 different sports. However, the brand is not currently investing in any cricket-related sports properties. Nevertheless, the company has a history of investing in sponsorship opportunities in the sport.

If Allianz aims to expand its naming rights sponsorship portfolio, India would be an intriguing location, given the nation’s financial forecasts and the size of the customer base that Allianz could target. This move would be significant for Allianz, as it would mark the company’s first major venue naming rights deal in Asia.

Sign up for our daily news round-up!

Give your business an edge with our leading industry insights.

Four years ago, WME Sports, an arm of the entertainment behemoth Endeavor, wanted to supercharge its nascent baseball agent business. Its plan was one of brute force: throw an eye-popping $25 million at a pair of coveted baseball reps, in hopes of enticing them to break their multiyear contracts and leave their boss, Casey Close, the longtime agent representing Derek Jeter.

So began a legal fight that concluded with a 70-page arbitrator’s ruling, one that provides an unvarnished view of a corner of the baseball world rarely illuminated to the public. The document brings into focus a sharp-elbowed business conducted in a world shaped by shifting allegiances and the unrelenting pressure to profit.

In a previously unreported decision, arbitrator Michael Gottesman ruled that agents Jim Murray and Michael Stival flagrantly breached their contracts when they defected to the upstart WME from Close’s firm, Excel Sports Management. Thirteen Excel players, including Ian Happ, Adam Ottavino and Anthony Volpe, absconded to WME Sports with the duo, while several more players left for other agencies. It added up to “an unprecedented departure of baseball clients,” the arbitrator said, and “a serious reputational loss” for Excel.

The February 2024 ruling argued that if the fallout from such blatant contractual breaches had gone unchecked, the effect would have been devastating.

“What WME did here, if it turns out to be profitable, would destabilize the entire baseball representation industry,” Gottesman wrote. “It would incentivize WME, with its massive resources, to gobble up more agents who are bound by contracts.”

The gravity of the matter was reflected in the punishment. For the first time ever in a baseball-agent dispute, the arbitrator awarded punitive damages, ordering WME to pay Excel $4 million. That was part of a total award of more than $10 million, including, in some cases, the return of 90 percent of commissions gained from player salaries.

“Excel respects the confidentiality of the Major League Baseball Players Association’s arbitration process and will have no comment,” Close said.

WME Sports is now looking to get out of the baseball business. Spokesperson Marie Sheehy said that is for a reason unrelated to the Excel case, but rival agents believe finances are a contributor. Either way, the ruling was designed to send a clear message to the rest of the agent world: There is a steep price to pay for breaking the established boundaries governing a notoriously cutthroat industry.

“This case is exceptionally egregious,” Gottesman wrote in his ruling, which was obtained by The Athletic. “WME knew full well that Murray and Stival would be breaching their contracts.”

Close, Murray and Stival all had once enjoyed a prosperous relationship.

Close had played pro ball, reaching Triple A in the New York Yankees’ and Seattle Mariners’ organizations. His fame, however, would not come as a player, but as an agent. After success at other firms, he was hired to build Excel into a juggernaut, and flourished in no small part because of a knack for spotting talent.

One of his first hires at Excel was Murray, who by then was an established agent known for his ability to recruit talent and negotiate contracts. A few years later, Close poached Stival, a bright lawyer who had worked at the players’ union since college. Stival had made his bones as an arbitration guru, prompting other agencies to pursue his services. Close was the only one who succeeded.

The trio led Excel to years of growth, and Murray in particular became a powerhouse. Close kept his office in New York, where only two other Excel baseball agents shared the space — Murray and Stival. Close testified that the combination of Murray and Stival’s skillsets was like “one plus one equals four.”

Murray and Stival were in Excel’s long-term plans. At the end of 2020, the private equity firm Shamrock showed interest in investing in Excel. But first the prospective investors needed assurance the agency would be in good hands for years to come. It was within this context, according to testimony, that Close called Murray and Stival “the two most important people in the baseball division.” He identified the pair as the baseball division’s future leaders. The investment went through.

Less than a year later, the former partners would be duking it out in court.

The product of multiple mergers of powerful Hollywood talent groups, Endeavor includes much more than WME Sports. Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, Rachel Maddow, John Mulaney and Barack and Michelle Obama are among the talent touted on WMEagency.com, across various divisions. Both World Wrestling Entertainment and Ultimate Fighting Championship are under the Endeavor umbrella as well.

For two years, WME searched for the right agents to lead its fledgling baseball division. Going into 2021, the firm carried just four baseball reps and only a few clients. One was star Carlos Correa. The shortstop was approaching free agency and the company wanted more firepower in hopes of retaining him. (It eventually lost him anyway.)

WME had initially limited its search to agents not bound by contracts to their firms, but that proved fruitless. That led to a shift in tactics: the company would now try to pry away agents under contract.

Murray was at the top of the list. He took a meeting with WME in March 2021, but said he was uninterested. He recommended his colleague Stival in his place, but nothing moved forward. Within a couple weeks, WME reps circled back, and this time, according to testimony, they came with a green light from top executives to make Murray and Stival a financial offer “that would make them interested.”

At the time, Murray was already the highest-paid agent across all of Excel’s divisions, Gottesman wrote. Since joining Excel in 2012, he had been instrumental in growing the baseball group from fewer than 25 clients to over 175. Excel rewarded him with a five-year deal through 2024 that paid him $1 million in base salary annually, plus bonuses.

To lure Murray, Endeavor blew that away with a package totaling more than $16 million on a six-year deal through 2027. It started out with a signing bonus of $1 million and equity worth $800,000. His annual base salary then would grow over time: $1.5 million for the first year, followed by $2.25 million in year two, $2.5 million in the third and fourth years, and $2.65 million in the final two years. Murray was also eligible for bonuses.

Stival too netted a significant pay raise over six years. WME gave him a financial package worth about $9.8 million. It paid him four times more in base pay for 2022 and 2023 than what his Excel deal called for.

“WME is unique,” Gottesman wrote, “capable of expending vast amounts of money to get what it wants. No other baseball agency has that capacity.”

The aggressive approach worked.

On Aug. 30, 2021, Murray and Stival finalized their lucrative deals. WME had seemingly met every demand. That included “total indemnity” clauses, as Gottesman put it. The agents had asked to be protected if Excel filed a lawsuit over their exit, and WME agreed. Such language was unprecedented for WME, which at first had some high-level executives deny the request. Endeavor president Mark Shapiro stepped in and overruled them.

The next day at 2:30 p.m., Murray and Stival jointly called Close. His top lieutenants had spent most of the calendar year orchestrating their exit from the firm they had worked together to build. Now they were on Zoom tendering their immediate resignation.

Close was blindsided.

Endeavor president Mark Shapiro, right, at a UFC event with UFC CEO Dana White. Shapiro approved the indemnity clauses for Murray and Stival. (Jeff Bottari / Zuffa LLC)

Rival agents smelled blood in the water. After Murray and Stival walked out the door, client defections began in less than two weeks. The tumult did not escape the notice of opportunists elsewhere. The case record includes a text message sent to a player from an agent at another company.

“I just know there’s a ton of drama and s— at excel and would hate for you to be a victim of that,” the rival agent texted. “You deserve nothing but the best.”

Excel claimed the damages amounted to tens of millions. The legal dispute began with a lawsuit in state court in New York in 2021, but wound up in front of an arbitrator as required by MLBPA’s agent regulations. The process was a heavy lift: eleven days of hearings, hundreds of exhibits, and 19 lawyers.

“The magnitude of the proceedings and importance of the case explain the enormous time required,” Gottesman wrote.

Accusations flew. Excel alleged that Murray and Stival made off with confidential company information, one of them via a thumb drive. The two agents denied it, and Gottesman wrote Excel had not proved the allegation.

Meanwhile, Murray and Stival believed Excel had breached a non-disparagement clause by besmirching their names to players. In one example, an Excel agent suggested Murray’s presence at Excel had produced “a decade of disaster.” Gottesman didn’t find Excel liable on that front, though.

Regardless, the overall result was clear: a near-total victory for Close and Excel, and hefty penalties for Endeavor.

“I have focused on the question [of] whether this case is different from all that preceded it. And I have concluded that it is,” Gottesman wrote. “Prior disputes have involved issues that affected only the parties and inflicted no harm on the industry as a whole.”

The $4 million in punitive damages was just the beginning. WME not only had to pay Excel money it made off former Excel clients, but Gottesman ruled it owed the company for other clients it took on for a lengthy period — from Sept. 1, 2021, through March 31 of this year. The only exception was if WME could prove the player joined for reasons other than Murray and Stival.

Agencies generally charge players 5 percent of their salaries and draft bonuses as a standard commission. For non-Excel players who arrived at WME from September 2021 through the end of 2023, Excel was owed 2.5 percent of their signing bonus and salary. For players who arrived at the firm from the start of 2024 through March 2025, it dropped to 2 percent of bonus and salary pay.

But for the players who did come over from Excel, the cost was much steeper. That group included Adam Ottavino, Ian Happ, Michael Siani, Jack Leiter, Anthony Volpe, David Dahl, Sammy Siani, Zach McAllister, Greg Bird, Dellin Betances, Andy Pettitte, Nick Maldonado and Chip Maldonado.

Ian Happ was one of the most prominent active players to move to WME from Excel. (Jim McIsaac / Getty Images)

At the time of the decision, WME had already negotiated $98 million in salaries for the active players in that group. Gottesman ruled that through the date of the ruling, February 2024, Excel was owed virtually all of the commission back for those players who had absconded directly to WME — 90 percent of it, which amounts to 4.5 percent of the overall salary.

On any contracts negotiated afterward for that group through March of this year, 70 percent of the commission had to go to Excel, or 3.5 percent of the overall salary.

Then, for younger players who have yet to reach arbitration, such as Volpe, Excel might be able to recoup money too even beyond March 2025.

If Murray and Volpe are still with WME when he reaches arbitration, then WME has to pay 30 percent of its commission on those years (1.5 percent of overall salary). And if they’re still together when he arrives at free agency, WME owes 20 percent on his first free-agent contract (1 percent overall).

A similar set of rules applies to off-field money WME owes Excel, which is where a retired player like Pettitte enters the picture. The typical agent’s commission for endorsements is 20 percent. Gottesman set up another sliding scale for Excel to recoup some of that money, too.

One player was designated by the arbitrator as a “special case.” Pitcher Jack Leiter, the No. 2 pick in the 2021 draft, received a $7.9 million bonus in July 2021. A client of Murray’s, Leiter hadn’t formally signed a representation agreement with Excel when Murray left for WME. Excel is owed the full 5 percent commission of $399,600, plus interest.

Rival agents believe the damages from the Excel case have contributed to a rough financial outlook for WME Sports, one they think has pushed the company to give up its foray into baseball.

The Excel case cost WME $6 million in attorneys’ fees, on top of the damages. Add in Murray and Stival’s high salaries, and the firm’s book of business likely hasn’t grown enough to balance out the combined costs, other agents said.

Sheehy, the WME Sports spokesperson, acknowledged that it is trying to shed its baseball business, but said it was because of a conflict of interest.

Silver Lake, a private equity group, recently took Endeavor private. Inside Silver Lake is a different group that owns a collection of Minor League Baseball teams, Diamond Baseball Holdings. That poses a potential problem: the MLBPA forbids agents from also owning teams.

“WME’s decision to divest its baseball business is unrelated to the confidential MLBPA arbitration ruling from 15 months ago,” Sheehy said. “The agency is divesting its baseball business due to a conflict from Silver Lake’s ownership of Diamond Baseball Holdings.”

Some agents said they understand the start of June looms as an internal deadline for WME to figure out its plans.

“The June 1 deadline is not accurate and we are working with the MLBPA to divest the baseball business in a timely manner,” Sheehy said.

The MLBPA declined comment.

When he issued his decision, Gottesman was concerned that his punishment could be insufficient, despite his intention of sending a message. He thought that by 2025, WME’s baseball business might be “robust.”

“I fear that my punitive damages award will fall short of extracting all profit from WME’s tortious behavior,” Gottesman wrote. “Murray and Stival are so talented that it is likely they will build an enormously profitable enterprise.”

That fear might have been misplaced.

(Top photo of Close: Kathy Willens / Associated Press)

Link