‘The most powerful man in sport’ dies

MARK MCCORMACK, once famously described as “the most powerful man in sport”, died in America yesterday, four months after suffering cardiac arrest and falling into a coma from which he never recovered.

The 72-year-old was the founder and head of the International Management Group, the world's best-known sports marketing and promoting agency.

His clients included golfers Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer, tennis stars Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg the Williams sisters and even the Pope.

Palmer was McCormack's first big-name signing, although their deal was done on a handshake: there was never a written contract.

As a young Cleveland-based lawyer McCormack was also a good golfer, but realised he would never have enough talent to turn professional.

"For me, the next best thing was representing those who did," he said.

Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus followed Palmer to form golf's "Big Three" at the very time television was becoming global and McCormack described having them all under his umbrella as "like winning a lottery".

By the time Nick Faldo, Colin Montgomerie and Bernhard Langer joined the stable, McCormack had already widened his empire.

The signing of Borg and Martina Navratilova meant he had just as big an influence on tennis, then there were athletes like Sebastian Coe and Mary Decker and corporations such as Shell, Ford, Rolex and Hertz soon called upon his expertise.

Sports bodies like the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, organisers of the Open, and the all-England Tennis Club also turned to McCormack to handle many of their marketing arrangements.

He used to travel 250,000 miles a year and his company now has 2,500 employees, with offices all over the world. Woods learnt of McCormack's death after his second round in the Deutsche Bank-SAP Open in Germany.

He said: "Mark was great to my father and I.

"We had numerous dinners and always one at the British Open each year. It's a loss for everybody.

"He was the one who started it all a genius when it comes to sports marketing.

"If it wasn't for him we would not be in the position we are.

"I was 18 or 19 when I first met him. I was playing a practice round for the US open, I believe, and he came up and said 'hello'."