Galway Holdings, the majority owner of MAI Capital Management, a Cleveland, Ohio-based RIA with $22.5 billion in assets, has launched GalwayPlus Sports + Entertainment, a new brand that will provide wealth and risk management to individuals, teams, leagues and organizations in the sports and entertainment industries.
Will Wilson, former CEO and general secretary of the U.S. Soccer Federation, who joined Galway in 2022 as chief corporate development officer, global sports and sustainability, will lead the new initiative. Jay Williams, former NBA player with the Chicago Bulls, ESPN talent and co-founder and chairman of Improbable Media, will also play a role in the development of GalwayPlus. Williams’ portfolio company has stakes in Galway.
Wilson explained GalwayPlus as an “ecosystem” that links together the many businesses across Galway, which include retail insurance, wholesale insurance and wealth management verticals. The wealth management vertical consists of MAI, which has grown significantly since entering the M&A arena in the summer of 2019 and has a large sports and entertainment business.
Galway’s businesses currently operate independently and will continue to do so, but GalwayPlus aims to provide services in a coordinated way through its network of companies. MAI’s clients, for instance, may have needs that another vertical can help serve.
“Those individuals have other needs, quite frankly, and many of them will bleed into the risk or the insurance space, whether that’s life insurance, whether that’s disability, whether that’s tax-advantaged products that they’re thinking of, whether that’s other businesses they have that may need insurance needs that they hadn’t previously thought about,” Wilson said.
“We’re able to solve complex client issues across both wealth and risk, and bring the expertise we have to bear literally to every corner of the sports and entertainment industry.”
Wilson expects to use his 30-year career in sports to build the new brand. Prior to his time at the U.S. Soccer Federation, he worked at Wasserman Media Group, a sports marketing and talent management company. He also had previous stints at Major League Soccer and the National Football League.
Athletes come into their fortunes at a much quicker pace and earlier time frame than the general population, which tends to gain wealth at an older age after a career of working over a period of time, Wilson said.
“It happens faster,” he said. “Their needs are different; they’re more accelerated. The need to have really good advice—both from the wealth perspective as well as the risk mitigation/insurance perspective—and how to think about themselves as a business unto themselves is at a much earlier timeframe.”