IMG

History

IMG was founded in 1960 in Cleveland, Ohio, by Mark McCormack, an American lawyer who spotted the potential for athletes to make large incomes from endorsement in the television age. He signed professional golfers Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus as his first clients who collectively are known as The Big Three. McCormack died in 2003.

In 2004, Forstmann Little, led by Theodore J. Forstmann, acquired the company; Forstmann was chairman and CEO until his death in late 2011.

On June 1, 2006, IMG Media acquired Tiger Aspect Productions, the producer of the British television series Mr. Bean and the company, along with Darlow Smithson Productions (also acquired in 2006) was later sold to Endemol in November 2009. nunet, a provider of mobile TV services to mobile network operators around the world, was also acquired by IMG. Clients of nunet's mobile TV CMS included Vodafone, Proximus, Vodacom, and Mobilkom A1, and content distributed by nunet included MTV, Fashion TV, Eurosport, and Discovery Networks. nunet was later sold to KIT Digital, Inc. in 2009.

In November 2007, IMG acquired Kentucky-based Host Communications, which had multiple business units with services ranging from sports marketing and broadcasting to the management of associations and non-profit organizations. The sports-related businesses were combined with the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC) to form IMG College, while the association management division was renamed IMG Associations.

IMG was originally headquartered in downtown Cleveland in a complex built in 1965 across the street from Erieview Tower. When the IMG Center was built, it originally housed the Cuyahoga Saving Bank, which was acquired by Charter One Bank in 1998.