Mark McCormack
Encyclopedia
Mark Hume McCormack was an American lawyer
, sports agent
for professional athletes (particularly in golf
and tennis
) and a prolific writer
. He was the founder and chairman of International Management Group, now IMG
, an international management organization that handles the commercial affairs for sports figures and celebrities.
publisher named Ned McCormack. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1951, where he played on the golf team. He earned his law degree from Yale Law School
, and briefly served in the United States Army
. He was an accomplished athlete in his youth, and had an excellent golf game, qualifying as an amateur for the 1958 U.S. Open Golf Championship
, but he missed the cut. After his Army discharge, he worked for a few years as an attorney at the Cleveland
law firm, Arter and Hadden.
as IMG's first client. Palmer, who had become golf's dominant superstar, was soon followed to IMG by rising stars Jack Nicklaus
and then Gary Player
. McCormack aggressively promoted the so-called Big Three of golf during the 1960s, raising their incomes dramatically, while building IMG's business.
IMG expanded into tennis a few years later, and helped fuel the quick growth of that sport as it entered the so-called Open era in the 1970s, with the development of an international tour for male and female players. IMG and McCormack's clients eventually included sports figures Björn Borg
, Chris Evert
, Pete Sampras
, Michael Schumacher
, Derek Jeter
, Charles Barkley
and model Kate Moss
. He also handled special projects for Margaret Thatcher
, Mikhail Gorbachev
and Pope John Paul II
. In the 1990s, IMG would become Tiger Woods
' first agency.
for golf fans, and included in its pages the first (unofficial) world ranking system.
, a two-time Australian Open
doubles champion and a Wimbledon
doubles finalist, while she was a business client. The couple founded the McCormack-Nagelsen Tennis Center
at the College of William & Mary, which houses the ITA
Women's Collegiate Tennis Hall of Fame.
in the lifetime achievement category, and he was inducted in October 2006. On January 23, 2008, he was also inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame
. He was featured as one of the Forbes 400 Richest Americans
in 1995, 1998, 2001. In 1990, he was named the "Most Powerful Man in Sports" by The Sporting News
.
The British film Wimbledon
(2004) was dedicated to Mark McCormack by director Richard Loncraine
.
The Mark H. McCormack Medal
is awarded to the leading player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking
after the U.S. Amateur Championship and the European Amateur Championship
.
The Mark H. McCormack Award is awarded to the player who has spent the most weeks at number 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking during a calendar year. The first 13 of these awards after its inception went to Tiger Woods
.
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
, sports agent
Sports agent
A sports agent procures and negotiates employment and endorsement contracts for an athlete.In return, the sports agent generally receives between 4 and 10% of the athlete's playing contract, and 10 to 20% of the athlete's endorsement contract, though these figures vary...
for professional athletes (particularly in golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
and tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
) and a prolific writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
. He was the founder and chairman of International Management Group, now IMG
IMG (business)
IMG, originally known as the International Management Group is a global sports and media business headquartered in New York City.-History:...
, an international management organization that handles the commercial affairs for sports figures and celebrities.
Early life, education
McCormack was the only son of a ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
publisher named Ned McCormack. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1951, where he played on the golf team. He earned his law degree from Yale Law School
Yale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
, and briefly served in the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
. He was an accomplished athlete in his youth, and had an excellent golf game, qualifying as an amateur for the 1958 U.S. Open Golf Championship
U.S. Open (golf)
The United States Open Championship, commonly known as the U.S. Open, is the annual open golf tournament of the United States. It is the second of the four major championships in golf, and is on the official schedule of both the PGA Tour and the European Tour...
, but he missed the cut. After his Army discharge, he worked for a few years as an attorney at the Cleveland
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
law firm, Arter and Hadden.
Business career
McCormack partnered with Don Taylor during the 1950s in arranging one-day golf exhibitions for professionals in cities around the United States. In 1960, after realizing the potential of sports in the television age, McCormack parted ways with Taylor and signed golfer Arnold PalmerArnold Palmer
Arnold Daniel Palmer is an American professional golfer, who is generally regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of men's professional golf. He has won numerous events on both the PGA Tour and Champions Tour, dating back to 1955...
as IMG's first client. Palmer, who had become golf's dominant superstar, was soon followed to IMG by rising stars Jack Nicklaus
Jack Nicklaus
Jack William Nicklaus , nicknamed "The Golden Bear", is an American professional golfer. He won 18 career major championships on the PGA Tour over a span of 25 years and is widely regarded as one of the greatest professional golfers of all time. In addition to his 18 Majors, he was runner-up a...
and then Gary Player
Gary Player
Gary Player DMS; OIG is a South African professional golfer. With his nine major championship victories, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of golf. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974. Player has won 165 tournaments on six continents over six...
. McCormack aggressively promoted the so-called Big Three of golf during the 1960s, raising their incomes dramatically, while building IMG's business.
IMG expanded into tennis a few years later, and helped fuel the quick growth of that sport as it entered the so-called Open era in the 1970s, with the development of an international tour for male and female players. IMG and McCormack's clients eventually included sports figures Björn Borg
Björn Borg
Björn Rune Borg is a former world no. 1 tennis player from Sweden. Between 1974 and 1981 he won 11 Grand Slam singles titles. He won five consecutive Wimbledon singles titles and six French Open singles titles...
, Chris Evert
Chris Evert
Christine Marie "Chris" Evert is a former world number 1 professional tennis player from the United States. She won 18 Grand Slam singles championships, including a record seven championships at the French Open and a record six championships at the U.S. Open. She was the year-ending World No...
, Pete Sampras
Pete Sampras
Pete Sampras is a retired American tennis player and former world no. 1. During his 15-year tour career, he won 14 Grand Slam singles titles and became recognized as one of the greatest tennis players of all time....
, Michael Schumacher
Michael Schumacher
Michael Schumacher is a German Formula One racing driver for the Mercedes GP team. Famous for his eleven-year spell with Ferrari, Schumacher is a seven-time World Champion and is widely regarded as the greatest F1 driver of all time...
, Derek Jeter
Derek Jeter
Derek Sanderson Jeter is an American baseball shortstop who has played 17 years in Major League Baseball for the New York Yankees. A twelve-time All-Star and five-time World Series champion, Jeter's clubhouse presence, on-field leadership, hitting ability, and baserunning have made him a central...
, Charles Barkley
Charles Barkley
Charles Wade Barkley is a former American professional basketball player. Nicknamed "Sir Charles" and "The Round Mound of Rebound", Barkley established himself as one of the National Basketball Association's most dominating power forwards...
and model Kate Moss
Kate Moss
Kate Moss is an English model. Moss is known for her waifish figure and popularising the heroin chic look in the 1990s. She is also known for her controversial private life, high profile relationships, party lifestyle, and drug use. Moss changed the look of modelling and started a global debate on...
. He also handled special projects for Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
, Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
and Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
. In the 1990s, IMG would become Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods
Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. Formerly the World No...
' first agency.
Writer
McCormack wrote numerous books, including the bestselling What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School, which spent 21 consecutive weeks at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, and The Terrible Truth About Lawyers. His annual publication The World of Professional Golf, first published in 1967, became an equivalent to WisdenWisden
The Wisden Group was a group of companies formed by John Wisden & Co Ltd, publishers of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. As well as John Wisden & Co, the group included the The Wisden Cricketer magazine, Cricinfo – the world's highest traffic cricket website – and the Hawk-Eye computerised...
for golf fans, and included in its pages the first (unofficial) world ranking system.
Originates rankings for golf and tennis
The system used to calculate McCormack's World Golf Rankings was adapted in 1986 to become the Official World Golf Ranking system, with McCormack chairing the rankings committee made up of representatives from all the major golf tours. McCormack pioneered a similar system for tennis rankings. McCormack met his second wife Betsy Nagelsen-McCormackBetsy Nagelsen
Betsy Nagelsen McCormack is a retired professional tennis player from the United States. Nagelsen won the doubles championship at the 1978 and 1980 Australian Opens . She reached the singles final of the 1978 Australian Open, losing to Christine O'Neil...
, a two-time Australian Open
Australian Open
The Australian Open is the only Grand Slam tennis tournament held in the southern hemisphere. The tournament was held for the first time in 1905 and was last contested on grass in 1987. Since 1972 the Australian Open has been held in Melbourne, Victoria. In 1988, the tournament became a hard court...
doubles champion and a Wimbledon
The Championships, Wimbledon
The Championships, Wimbledon, or simply Wimbledon , is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, considered by many to be the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London since 1877. It is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the other three Majors...
doubles finalist, while she was a business client. The couple founded the McCormack-Nagelsen Tennis Center
McCormack-Nagelsen Tennis Center
The McCormack–Nagelsen Tennis Center is a $3,000,000, facility that is home to the College of William & Mary’s women’s tennis team as well as the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s Women’s Tennis Hall of Fame. It is located in Williamsburg, Virginia. The facility includes six indoor courts and...
at the College of William & Mary, which houses the ITA
Intercollegiate Tennis Association
The Intercollegiate Tennis Association is an organization of 1,500 coaches and 15,000 collegiate tennis players, encompassing more than 1,000 college tennis programs...
Women's Collegiate Tennis Hall of Fame.
Death
McCormack died at a New York hospital on May 16, 2003 after suffering a cardiac event four months earlier that left him in a coma. His second wife, their daughter and children Breck, Todd and Leslie from his longtime marriage to Nancy Breckenridge McCormack later shared $750 million when the family's shares in IMG were sold.Honors
In July 2006 McCormack was selected for induction into the World Golf Hall of FameWorld Golf Hall of Fame
The World Golf Hall of Fame is located at World Golf Village near St. Augustine, Florida, in the United States, and it is unusual among sports halls of fame in that a single site serves both men and women. It is supported by a consortium of 26 golf organizations from all over the world.The Hall of...
in the lifetime achievement category, and he was inducted in October 2006. On January 23, 2008, he was also inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame
International Tennis Hall of Fame
The International Tennis Hall of Fame is located in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. The hall of fame and honors players and contributors to the sport of tennis and includes a museum, grass tennis courts, an indoor tennis facility, and a court tennis facility.-History:The hall of fame and...
. He was featured as one of the Forbes 400 Richest Americans
Forbes 400
The Forbes 400 or 400 Richest Americans is a list published by Forbes Magazine magazine of the wealthiest 400 Americans, ranked by net worth. The list is published annually in September, and 2010 marks the 29th issue. The 400 was started by Malcom Forbes in 1982 and treats those in the list like...
in 1995, 1998, 2001. In 1990, he was named the "Most Powerful Man in Sports" by The Sporting News
The Sporting News
Sporting News is an American-based sports magazine. It was established in 1886, and it became the dominant American publication covering baseball — so much so that it acquired the nickname "The Bible of Baseball"...
.
The British film Wimbledon
Wimbledon (film)
Wimbledon is a 2004 romantic comedy film directed by Richard Loncraine. The film centers on a washed-up tennis pro named Peter Colt and an up-and-coming tennis star named Lizzie Bradbury during the Wimbledon Championships.The film was dedicated to Mark McCormack, who died on 16 May 2003 after...
(2004) was dedicated to Mark McCormack by director Richard Loncraine
Richard Loncraine
Richard Loncraine is a British film and television director.Loncraine received early training in the features department of the BBC, including a season directing items for Tomorrow's World...
.
The Mark H. McCormack Medal
Mark H. McCormack Medal
The Mark H. McCormack Medal is presented annually by The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews to the leading player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking after the U.S. Amateur Championship and the European Amateur Championship...
is awarded to the leading player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking
World Amateur Golf Ranking
The World Amateur Golf Ranking for men was introduced by the R&A, the governing body of amateur golf outside the United States and Mexico, on 23 January 2007. It is based on the results of over 750 amateur tournaments and is updated weekly. Rankings are based on the players' average performances in...
after the U.S. Amateur Championship and the European Amateur Championship
European Amateur
The European Amateur Championship is an annual amateur golf tournament. It is played at various locations throughout Europe. It is organized by the European Golf Association and was first played in 1986. The winner receives an invitation to The Open Championship.-Winners:-External links:***...
.
The Mark H. McCormack Award is awarded to the player who has spent the most weeks at number 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking during a calendar year. The first 13 of these awards after its inception went to Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods
Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. Formerly the World No...
.