Menu
Labor and Agents

Addition Of Rory McIlroy To Stable Puts Horizon Sports Management Into Mainstream

The signing of golfer Rory McIlroy “has propelled Horizon Sports Management into the big league” and placed them “into the international mainstream,” according to Philip Reid of the IRISH TIMES. The Dublin-based firm, founded by Conor Ridge and Colin Morrissey, “also houses his predecessor as US Open champion, Graeme McDowell.” Ridge "took the bull by the horns in setting up the firm and brought Morrissey on board from the start.” The firm started out small, “nabbing top-ranked Irish amateurs who turned professional and played mainly on the Challenge Tour in Europe.” Along the way, Horizon “merged with JPS, a small sports agency based in the UK, which was backed by Belfast businessman John McKillen.” The company began growing in ’07 when McDowell "made the move to Horizon" after starting out with ISM. Ridge said, “He’d been with Chubby for five years, they’d done a really good job for him and looked after him really well. But I suppose there comes a point, whether you’re with them or IMG, where you are one of 30 or 40 players. ... He spoke about getting a lot of energy from a new group of people being around him, and maybe a company being built around him.” Reid noted the next acquisition “saw Ross Fisher leave IMG for Horizon.” If the arrivals of McDowell and Fisher “made the likes of ISM and IMG take Horizon’s arrival on the scene more seriously, it was nothing compared to the seismic wave last October” when McIlroy decided to leave ISM to join the group. Ridge has maintained “an almost religious silence on how or why the move came about.” McDowell confessed that “he’d thought McIlroy -- when the time came to make a move -- would have gone to IMG or CAA” (IRISH TIMES, 3/24).

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2012/03/27/Labor-and-Agents/Horizon-Sports.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2012/03/27/Labor-and-Agents/Horizon-Sports.aspx

CLOSE