IMG Ends Team Sports Deals After Selling Hockey Practice
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Pyne Says IMG Will Focus
Efforts On Golf And Tennis |
IMG has “divested itself of its hockey athlete representation practice and has
no plans to continue to represent team sports athletes in the U.S.,” according
to Liz Mullen of SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. IMG Sports & Entertainment President
GEORGE PYNE: “It is unlikely and not in our current strategic plans to focus
on any of the team sports athlete representation businesses in the U.S.” Pyne
added that IMG will “focus its athlete representation efforts on golf and tennis,
global sports in which IMG also owns events and can control media and sponsorship
sales.” Agent RALPH CINDRICH, who worked for IMG from ’88-91, said, “The
team sports stars added glamour to the IMG name, but probably not as much to the
bottom line.” Mullen notes the decision to sell the hockey practice — which
includes Penguins C SIDNEY CROSBY, Rangers RW JAROMIR JAGR and Sharks
C JOE THORNTON — to agents PAT BRISSON and J.P. BARRY,
comes after the NHLPA notified IMG “that it was in violation of the union’s conflict-of-interest
policy” because Blues Owner DAVE CHECKETTS is on IMG’s BOD. In April, football
agent TOM CONDON and baseball agent CASEY CLOSE left IMG for CAA,
and Pyne hired headhunter JED HUGHES to find a replacement for Condon.
Sources said that Hughes “has contacted a number of the top football agents in
the country” (SPORTSBUSINESS
JOURNAL, 7/10 issue).
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