For years, WME-IMG co-CEO ARI EMANUEL's "most enduring obsession was to combine" WME with IMG, and it "began in earnest" in the summer of '04, according to a profile by William Cohan of VANITY FAIR under the header, "Ari Emanuel's Sporting Bet." Emanuel and others "had dinner" in '04 with late IMG Chair & CEO TED FORSTMANN, and during Forstmann's negotiations with MARK MCCORMACK's estate for IMG, he and Emanuel "kept talking." Before Forstmann "closed the deal" for $750M in November '04, he and Emanuel "considered the possibility of IMG also acquiring Endeavor, with Emanuel running the combined company." A source said that when that deal did not happen, Emanuel "proclaimed that the merger would be happening and that he was, in fact, going to be the CEO of the combined company." Forstmann over the next decade "transformed IMG into an international production-and-packaging powerhouse." The expanding business "cut profitable deals with more than 200" American college sports teams as well.
COLLEGE TRY: In May of '14, WME closed the deal to buy IMG for $2.45B, and a few days after the sale, then-IMG Chair & CEO MIKE DOLAN was notified that a "confidential package had arrived for him from WME/IMG human resources." Emanuel "had fired him," but that "was only the beginning of the blood-letting." WME-IMG CFO PETER KLEIN in July "quit for personal reasons." But a former IMG exec said, "Peter knew that he was set up to take the fall. ... He realized the college numbers were bullshit. The $155 (million of cost savings) was bullshit." A few weeks later, IMG Senior VP/Consulting DAVID ABRUTYN "announced he would be leaving," followed by Senior VP/HR CONSTANCE WILSON-WILLIAMS and, "more important," IMG Sports & Entertainment President GEORGE PYNE. Around that time, "problems with IMG's college-sports business began to seep into public view." In June, the company "lost a premier multi-million-dollar licensing and local-media contract" with the Univ. of Kentucky, and then "almost lost its deal" with Syracuse. Only with WME-IMG co-CEO PATRICK WHITESELL's "direct intervention was the contract salvaged." Some former IMG execs "think it is just a matter of time before the banks learn of the magnitude of the missed projections of the college-sports business as well as the presumed failure to achieve" the $150M-plus in cost savings (VANITY FAIR, 3/ '15 issue).
