Mark Hume McCormack, the founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of International Management Group (IMG) and the man who transformed the world of sport, has died at the age of 72, four months after slipping into a coma following severe cardiac arrest.
McCormack took ill on January 16 and died on May 16 in New York after failing to regain consciousness. He has three children from his first marriage to Nancy Breckenridge McCormack, sons Breck and Todd who both work for IMG and daughter, Leslie, who works in the London offices of Trans World International, the company’’s television arm, while he and second wife, the former tennis player, Betsy Nagelsen, have a five year old daughter, Maggie.
Widely acknowledged as the man who effectively invented modern sports management, McCormack was named by Sports Illustrated in 1991 as the most powerful man in global sport, having founded IMG in 1960 – on the strength of a handshake with Arnold Palmer - and turned it into a multi-billion dollar industry.
IMG, based in Cleveland, Ohio, have 80 offices in 32 countries and employ more than 2,500 people, while representing many of the world’’s most prominent athletes including golfers Nick Faldo, Sergio Garcia, Bernhard Langer, Colin Montgomerie and World Number One, Tiger Woods.
A graduate with a law degree from Yale University in 1954 and a golfer of sufficient skill to have qualified for the US Open in the same era as Palmer, it was the latter who became his first client in 1960 and effectively acted as the catalyst for the building of a worldwide empire.
McCormack, then an ambitious young lawyer who had been introduced to the game of golf after suffering a fractured skull when struck by a car at the age of six and had to give up playing American Football, deduced that Palmer could earn considerable additional income from sponsorships and endorsements.
That instinctive business acumen, allied to a deep love of the sport, was quickly vindicated as Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus joined up with IMG to form the most important triumvirate in golf during the sixties. Palmer, Player and Nicklaus, dubbed the “Big Three”, were to dominate the sport and popularise the professional game globally during that decade and beyond.
Palmer has never forgotten the moment he and McCormack struck that historic first deal. He was to recount later: “Mark has never broken the faith of that handshake. That meant a lot to me.”
Player added: “Mark has been both a friend and colleague for over 40 years and has unquestionably been the catalyst in making golf the globally commercial success it is today. He was a visionary and a pioneer across all professional sports.”
Ken Schofield, Executive Director of The European Tour, was a close business associate of McCormack for almost 30 years and he detailed the legacy which IMG’’s founding father leaves behind.
“His legacy is international sport as we know it,” said Schofield. “I would not go as far to say that without Mark McCormack golf and tennis would not have developed as international sports – Mark would not expect that – but the reality is that they would not have developed as quickly and efficiently without him. He saw the bigger picture for his company and his athletes and I can think of no greater tribute.”
Schofield recounted his first meeting with McCormack in late 1974, just a matter of months before he succeeded John Jacobs as Executive Director of The European Tour. He said: “I knew I was starting my new role on January 1, 1975, and among the wonderful advice he gave me was the suggestion that I should meet Mark McCormack as soon as possible.
“John said I would find him extremely challenging and very dominating in that he will argue for what he believes in and in what he wants, but to argue how I saw things with Mark in the room because when he made an agreement it would never be broken. John was right. It never was.
“Mark would drive the ultimate bargain because I think he started with the ultimate drawing card in Arnold, before very quickly adding Gary and Jack to form the ‘Big Three’’. I feel he is rightly credited with making athletes worthy of their hire, and, in the case of Arnold, for playing a large part in driving, making and aiding the image of a guy who was a combination of Dwight D Eisenhower and John Wayne!”
Schofield continued: “He was both intuitive and calculating in business, in that he followed his instincts but at the same time had the ability to calculate the odds and make sure that the table was stacked in his favour.
“His sheer force of presence was, certainly for me, very inspiring. The name and reputation went before him and he was no disappointment in reality. He was larger than life, an icon in our lives.”
A memorial service for Mark Hume McCormack is being planned for Wednesday, May 21, in New York, and all members of the IMG family are welcome. There will be a private burial in Chicago.
