The Assets
IMG Academy
Based in Bradenton, Fla., this 400-acre complex hosts more than 30,000 athletes a year who spend their weeks, weekends or summers training in tennis, golf, soccer, baseball, football, lacrosse, basketball and other sports. There’s also a year-round K-12 school that prepares students who are training to be top athletes. Andre Agassi, Maria Sharapova, basketball’s Michael Beasley and soccer’s Michael Parkhurst are among today’s sports stars who trained there.
IMG College
Though it’s one of the newest areas of the company’s business, it’s considered to be one of its strongest. IMG said Dec. 17 that the college division generated $483 million in revenue in 2013. The company built the division by acquiring Collegiate Licensing Co. and Host Communications in 2007 and ISP in 2010. It has rights to more than 75 properties, including Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio State and Texas, and two conferences, the SEC and the MAC.
IMG Consulting
The company has a staff of more than 125 people that provides sponsorship marketing advice to more than 50 corporate clients worldwide. Its roster of clients, which includes Allstate, British Airways, Coca-Cola, GE, Visa and others, spends more than $2 billion on sponsorships annually. The consulting group does everything from strategic planning and negotiation to activation and hospitality management.
IMG Media
The company distributes more than 21,000 hours of content from 400 events to broadcasters worldwide. It has offices in 21 cities on all seven continents. It also has video archives that include classic Premier League matches, the PGA Championship, Wimbledon and a host of other events.
IMG Fashion
The company manages some of the biggest fashion shows in the world, including New York, Milan, London and Tokyo. It also has a consulting division and a licensing group that works with Vera Bradley and Perry Ellis. Its management division represents Kate Upton, Miranda Kerr, Kate Moss and others.
Sports
The company owns and manages a host of events across sports ranging from surfing to cricket and figure skating to tennis. The best-known properties that it owns include the ATP Sony Open, the U.S. Open of Surfing and Smucker’s Stars on Ice. It also operates 15 PGA and LPGA events, and manages cricket’s Indian Premier League and the Chinese Super League, a 16-team soccer league. It recently invested in starting a pro basketball league in India.
Talent
The company largely withdrew from the talent representation business over the last eight years, though it still represents some of the biggest names in sports and entertainment, handling endorsements for Peyton and Eli Manning, Danica Patrick, Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift and others.
HEADQUARTERS
WME: Beverly Hills, Calif.
Silver Lake: Menlo Park, Calif.
TOP EXECUTIVES
WME
Ari Emanuel, Co-CEO
Patrick Whitesell, Co-CEO
Silver Lake
James Davidson, Co-founder, managing partner and managing director
Glenn Hutchins, Co-founder
David Roux, Co-founder
Egon Durban, Managing partner and managing director
Mike Bingle, Managing partner and managing director
Kenneth Hao, Managing partner and managing director
Greg Mondre, Managing partner and managing director
Note: Mark Shapiro, a former ESPN executive, served as an adviser on the IMG purchase.
WME DIVISIONS
WME Entertainment
WME Speakers
Digital
Literary
Motion Pictures and Film
Music
Talent
Television
Theatre
SILVER LAKE DIVISIONS
Silver Lake Partners
Silver Lake Sumeru
Silver Lake Debt Strategies
Silver Lake Kraftwerk
SILVER LAKE PORTFOLIO (INDUSTRY)
Alibaba Group (e-commerce websites)
Allyes (online media)
Avaya (enterprise communications solutions)
AVI-SPL (video communications solutions)
BlackLine Systems (enterprise accounting software)
Dell (PC and enterprise solutions)
Eka (commodity management software)
eRecycling Group (mobile device trade-in and reuse)
friedola®Tech (recycled lightweight plastics)
Gerson Lehrman Group (expert consultant network)
Global Blue (transaction processing)
Go Daddy (web hosting and domain registration services)
Groupon (collective purchasing)
Hillstone Networks (network equipment)
Intelsat (fixed satellite services)
Interactive Data Corp. (financial market data)
IPC (communications solutions)
Locaweb (hosting and cloud computing)
MedSeek (health care IT)
Mercury (merchant acquiring for integrated payments)
Mobile Messenger (mobile payments)
MultiPlan (health care cost management)
NXP (silicon solutions)
Opera Solutions (data analytics software and services)
Sabre (travel distribution solutions)
Serena (change management software)
Smart Modular (memory systems and solid state drives)
Spansion (flash memory solutions)
SunGard (software and processing solutions)
Talend (open source data management software)
Vantage Data Centers (data centers)
Velocity Technology Solutions (enterprise cloud application hosting)
Virtu Financial (electronic market making)
William Morris Endeavor (entertainment and media)
Zynga (online social games)
— Compiled by Brandon McClung, SportsBusiness Journal research
