Jack Nicklaus has spent a lifetime around greatness, so when he says someone changed the game, it was a moment he will forever remember.

In a recent interview, he pointed to Mark McCormack as the first man who really tried to turn what an athlete did on the field into a business away from it.

"I think Mark was the first one that actually tried to take what you were doing on the golf course and use it for business outside the golf course," Nicklaus said during his recent appearance on The Big Swing With Jimmy Roberts. "So, I mean, that was just a start."

That idea may sound normal now, but that 'start' is the reason modern athletes have shoe deals, apparel lines, content businesses, and appearance fees that dwarf their prize money.

McCormack, a Yale University law graduate, founded the International Management Group (IMG) in 1960 at the age of 29. Golf legend Arnold Palmer was McCormack's very first client. In 1960, the two men formed a lifelong, multi-million-dollar empire based purely on a handshake.

McCormack recognized Palmer’s immense charisma and aggressively marketed 'The King' empire around it.

"It was Mark — his whole idea — and Mark and Arnold were good friends, and they just took it together and they formed IMG, and you know that became sort of the uh model or template for what business is going to be for athletes," Nicklaus told Jimmy Roberts.

Palmer's success started McCormack's phone ringing. Gary Player signed on next, followed by Nicklaus himself in early 1961, completing the trio that became 'The Big Three'.

It was just a start. McCormack expanded IMG into tennis, signing Björn Borg, Chris Evert, and Martina Navratilova, and later added Formula 1 stars Jackie Stewart and Ayrton Senna. He even ventured outside sports entirely, reportedly taking on special projects for public figures including Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher and the Pope.

By the time McCormack passed away in 2003, IMG had revenues of over $1bn a year, 85 offices in 35 countries and 3,000-plus employees, The Guardian reported.

The $100,000 Pitch That Won Over Jack Nicklaus

Nicklaus still remembers the moment McCormack came to him with the bigger picture.

At the time, Nicklaus was a young man selling insurance and making a sufficient living. McCormack told him he could make about $100,000 more than that through outside business.

"I think that when I turned pro that was at the time Mark came down to see me, and I was probably in October of '61. And I was making a pretty decent living selling insurance, which is pretty good. I was 20-year-old kid making — I guess I was 21 — making $30, $35,000 a year in 1960," Nicklaus recalled during the same interview.

"Has a pretty good living, right? I said to him, said, 'Mark, what do you expect?' He says, 'I think you could probably make besides what you want, I'm sure. But I think we can probably make your earnings worth about $100,000 more than that.'"

But the money was not the only thing that caught Nicklaus’s ear. What really mattered was the chance to keep playing golf and earn a living from it.

"But it really wasn't what was important to me. What was important to me is I had — I got the ability to go do the thing I loved, and not only do it to accomplish maybe be the best I could be at what I could be, but also to make a living at it and not have to run into sell insurance to my fraternity brothers who needed it like a hole in the head," Nicklaus added, laughing.

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Written by

Md Saife Fida