Editor's note: This story is revised from the print edition.
WWE sales chief Andrew Judelson will lead national sales at IMG College after a shake-up that led to a change in leadership.
Judelson will serve as senior vice president at IMG, leading the sales team in the college division, while also overseeing business development across the company’s North American business. He’ll report to IMG College chief sales and marketing officer Roger VanDerSnick on the college business and IMG Sports & Entertainment President George Pyne on other business development.
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Judelson
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Judelson, who will be based in IMG’s New York office, replaces Lawton Logan, who had been in that role for the last two years. Logan’s status at IMG remains uncertain. The company is in talks with Logan to reassign him, but nothing has been finalized, the company said.
IMG has not said why the change was made. VanDerSnick said Judelson will be expected to move sales “to the next stage.”
IMG College’s efforts to aggregate the multimedia rights at more than 80 universities in order to create a national college platform have yielded some wins in the first two years. Aaron’s, Hershey, Hyundai, Lowe’s, MillerCoors, Panasonic and UPS are among the larger deals that IMG College has closed.
“We’re very pleased with the way the early days have unfolded,” VanDerSnick said. “We’ve proved that the concept works for a number of different marketing partners with different marketing objectives. We’re just ready to take it to the next stage and get into some other categories. Andrew is the guy to lead all of that for us.”
Judelson, 45, will start at IMG on Feb. 19. He spent the past 14 months at World Wrestling Entertainment, where he was executive vice president, sales and partnership marketing. He established marketing partnerships between WWE and brands like Nestlé, General Motors, Colgate and Post Foods.
He previously oversaw sales at the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, served as CMO at Sports Illustrated Group, and led corporate sales and marketing for NHL Enterprises.
Judelson said many of his conversations with VanDerSnick about the IMG job compared the college space to the NFL of the late 1970s.
“It’s a tremendous opportunity to take the vision built by IMG College to the marketplace,” Judelson said. “It’s a business proposition unparalleled in sports and entertainment.
“When you think about college, it takes time to build awareness and assign the value proposition. You have to communicate that value proposition to corporate America. But I think we’re at the tipping point of corporate America understanding the value of this as a national platform.”
