IMG College, is the nation's largest collegiate sports marketing company, representing more than 200 of the nation's top collegiate properties including the NCAA and its 89 championships, NCAA Football, leading conferences, and many of the most prestigious colleges and universities in the country. Headquartered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, IMG College employs more than 700 people in nearly 100 offices throughout the United States.
IMG College was formed from the acquisition of Host Communications and The Collegiate Licensing Company in 2007. Additionally ISP Sports was acquired in 2010.
In 2012, a joint venture with Learfield created IMG Learfield Ticket Solutions, now representing 30 universities as the leader in outsourced ticketing. Additionally, IMG College Seating, the largest premium cushion stadium seat provider in college athletics, now represents more than 90 universities nationwide, managing more than 500,000 college football stadium seats annually.
The IMG College Audio Network consists of more than 2,100 radio stations airing primarily football and men's basketball games along with weekly call-in coaches' shows. The media network also includes over 100 television stations airing weekly half hour coaches' shows for most of the universities represented by the company. IMG Audio produces more than 35,000 hours of college sports programming annually for these affiliate stations.
Host Communications was founded in 1974 and created one of the first college sports multimedia contracts with its creation of a radio network for the University of Kentucky. ISP Sports was founded in 1992 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina providing sports marketing and broadcast services for collegiate athletics across the United States. In addition to the Winston-Salem headquarters, the company operates more than 90 regional offices.
The organization also co-owns the Longhorn Network and Campus Insiders, the latter through which it holds a stake in 120 Sports.
Leadership
- Ben Sutton, Jr. Chairman & President, IMG College
- Tim Pernetti, President, Multimedia
- Jim Connelly, Senior Vice President, Special Projects
- Mark Dyer, Senior Vice President, Business Ventures
- Lou Doherty, Senior Vice President & General Counsel
- Joe Potter, Senior Vice President, Operations
- Roger VanDerSnick, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer
- Andrew Judelson, Senior Vice President, National Sales
- Rick Barakat, Vice President, Sales Strategy & Operations
- Andrew Giangola, Vice President, Strategic Communications
Role in transforming sports marketing
IMG College has aggregated sponsorship and multi-media rights for universities in 49 of the top 50 U.S. markets, in effect creating the first national sponsorship platform for college sports. Large companies which previously had to negotiate with each university to utilize its intellectual property now can attain a national footprint of schools coast to coast. UPS, Lowe’s, Hershey, and MillerCoors were the first major brands to utilize this groundbreaking platform to reach 190 million college sports fans.
Markets and schools
At the conference level, IMG represents The American, A10, Horizon League, MAC, MEAC, OVC, SEC and WCC, and also individually represents the NCAA, the Heisman Trophy and 26 Bowl games. The company also maintains the IMG Academy, a premier school for preparing student-athletes for their next step in life in Bradenton, Florida.
IMG represents more than 90 universities in multi-media rights and more than 200 universities in trademark licensing, including, but not limited to:
See also
- List of Virginia Tech IMG Sports Network stations
- Syracuse ISP Sports Network