IMG: Show Me The Bottom Line

He was hailed as a genius and a visionary who practically invented the field of sports marketing. And he was a master schmoozer to boot. So when International Management Group founder Mark H. McCormack died just over a year ago at the age of 72, there was a torrent of speculation over the future of what Wharton School professor Kenneth L. Shropshire calls "the world's most powerful sports-marketing brand."

Under the charismatic McCormack, IMG became the undisputed heavyweight champion of representation, the show-me-the-money guys for sports megastars such as Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning and supermodels such as Tyra Banks. It represents about half of the world's top 20 golfers and is a dominant presence in sports such as tennis, baseball, and football. Says Arnold Palmer, whose legendary handshake with college golf rival McCormack launched the firm in 1960: "They have the right connections and the people, and they produce results." IMG's TWI unit is the world's largest independent producer and distributor of sports programming, handling such disparate offerings as Wimbledon and the World's Strongest Man competition. And its reach extends from owning sports stadiums to running IMG Models, the world's largest modeling agency.