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IMG Buy ISP; Moves to Control Collegiate Sports Marketing

If you are a college sports fan, you have probably paid money to IMG sometime in the past year, likely without realizing it.  IMG, which is more commonly thought of as a large sports and entertainment management firm, representing Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer and Roger Federer, among others. However, it began a push into college sports in 2007.  If you bought any officially licensed clothing of your or paraphernalia of your alma mater, then you paid IMG, as IMG bought Collegiate Sports Licensing back in 2007.  That purchase marked the beginning of its assault on the collegiate sports marketing dollar.

Later in 2007, IMG acquired Host Communications which held multimedia contracts with Kentucky, Arizona, Michigan, Kansas and Texas among others. In 2008, CBS chooses IMG to market corporate sponsorships for all of the NCAA championships. Throughout 2008 and 2009, IMG College, the former Host Communications, continues to add colleges to it roster list. 

 Then, this week it announces it has reached an agreement to acquire ISP, its major rival in the business of marketing collegiate athletic programs.  Terms of the acquistion have not been announced and the deal is subject to regulatory approval.  That approval may not be automatic.  If the deal is done, the combined entity will represent 80 schools including 34 out of 65 in the six BCS conferences, plus it will also represent Notre Dame.

 There are also significant conflict of interest concerns that are raised by IMG's client roster.  It represents both the NCAA and its most prominent member schools.  What happens when those schools are brought before the NCAA for rules violations that may affect their marketability. Will IMG have any influence on the ultimate penalties handed down?  Will IMG influence the NCAA basketball committee when it makes its at large selections for the NCAA basketball tournament, a tournament whose corporate sponsorships it marketed and many of whose participants and would be participant's multimedia rights it also holds.  The possible conflicts here are endless and I don't have the energy or time to list them all.  It is something the regulators will look at together with market share.  It is also something the NCAA needs to consider, as dispassionately as it can, given it is in the middle of many of the conflicts.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on July 29, 2010 (boomark / email).