Mark McCormack

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Mark Hume McCormack (born November 6, 1930 in Chicago , Illinois , † May 16, 2003 in New York ) was an American manager. With his company International Management Group (IMG) he is considered to be a pioneer of modern sports marketing .

Golf as a starting point

A tragic event influenced McCormack's unprecedented career: as a child, he suffered a serious car accident. Since many sports were no longer possible for health reasons, his father Ned gave him golf clubs as a present. His lifelong passion for golf began as follows: He played on the golf team at the prestigious College of William and Mary . Here he made the acquaintance of Arnold Palmer . As a golf amateur, McCormack later qualified for the US Open in 1958 , from which he was eliminated after two rounds. Unlike Palmer, he decided against a career as a professional golfer and graduated from Yale University Law School .

In 1959, Palmer and McCormack met again at the Carling Open in Cleveland . McCormack was working as a lawyer in Cleveland at the time. Palmer was already a respected professional golfer, having won the Masters the year before. The two sealed their collaboration with a handshake - the cornerstone for the marketing and management of famous athletes that is common everywhere today. The following year McCormack signed Jack Nicklaus , then in 1962 Gary Player . McCormack later rated the tournament victories of the “Big Three” as a decisive factor in his own success: “If my first three clients, the famous golfers Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus, had not won their tournaments after I signed them I probably still work as a lawyer somewhere. "

McCormack represents stars of all sports

After his great success in golf, McCormack turned increasingly to tennis. From 1968 he marketed both the tournament at Wimbledon and the top Australian player Rod Laver . With Björn Borg , John McEnroe , Ivan Lendl , Martina Navrátilová , Chris Evert and Pete Sampras , many other tennis players became clients of McCormack IMG. In the following years IMG represented top athletes from all areas. From athletics, for example, these were the English middle distance runner Sebastian Coe , the American marathon runner Alberto Salazar and the American 5000-meter world record holder Mary Decker . Then there were the Canadian ice hockey legends Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky , the skiers Jean-Claude Killy , Alberto Tomba and Rosi Mittermaier as well as the racing drivers Jackie Stewart and Alain Prost .

Importance for sports marketing

"I would not go so far as to say that without him golf and tennis would not have become outstanding international sports," said Tiger Woods after McCormack's death in 2003, "but the reality is that without him they will not move as quickly and effectively would have developed. He was a genius of sports marketing. ”He had“ invented the business of marketing athletes and sporting events, ”said Der Spiegel .

The fact that the advertising income of today's athletes exceeds their income from prize money or income from contracts with clubs many times over was only possible in the course of the continuous marketing of athletes. McCormack and his International Management Group play a pioneering role on the path of modern professional sport.

Personal

In 1986 he married the American tennis player Betsy Nagelsen .

documentary

  • BigMcCormack. The global player in sport . ARD / SWR 2000 (documentary by Harold Woetzel , 75 min.)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ I would very much like to take over Becker . In: The world
  2. ↑ Mark McCormack. In: Website of the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Retrieved February 20, 2016 .
  3. ↑ If only the Pope had drunk Coca-Cola . In: Der Spiegel . No. 27 , 1984, pp. 89-95 ( Online - July 2, 1984 ).
  4. ↑ spiegel.de
  5. ↑ Mark McCormack . In: Der Spiegel . No. 27 , 1993, pp. 168 ( online - July 5, 1993 ).
  6. ↑ IMG founder McCormack dies at 72. In: usatoday.com. May 16, 2003, accessed December 31, 2017 .
  7. ^ Daserste.de ( Memento of August 8, 2002 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME McCormack, Mark
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McCormack, Mark Hume
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American sports marketing manager
DATE OF BIRTH November 6, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois, USA
DATE OF DEATH May 16, 2003
Place of death New York , USA