IMG

IMG, originally known as the International Management Group, is a global sports, fashion, events and media company headquartered in New York City. The company manages athletes and fashion celebrities; owns, operates and commercially represents live events; and is an independent producer and distributor of sports and entertainment media. It has been owned by Endeavor since 2013. 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 served as 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) later sold to Endemol in November 2009. In 2006, IMG Media acquired nunet AG, a provider of mobile TV services to mobile network operators around the world. Clients of nunet's mobile TV CMS currently include: Vodafone, Proximus, Vodacom, Mobilkom A1. Content distributed currently includes MTV, Fashion TV, Eurosport, and Discovery Networks.