#1:How one man changed Wimbledon forever.
One of the biggest sporting events of the world was once an obscure affair. Wasn't much followed or watched outside of Great Britain. Until it was. One man was instrumental. Let's dive right into it.
First some basic background:
Wimbledon is one of the four grand slam tennis tournaments in the world (the other 3 three being the Australian Open, the French Open and the US Open). In fact, it is regarded as the most prestigious tennis tournament. It is the holy grail for anyone who dreams of ever playing tennis professionally (for anyone, not named Nick Kyrgios). It is organized every year by the All England Club.
Wimbledon also makes healthy money. For example, in 2017, Wimbledon made around $289 million, the sources of which can be broken down as:
(1) TV Rights: $160 million
(2) Sponsorships: $47 million
(3) Ticket sales: $47 million
(4) Merchandise, Pimm's drinks, champagne, strawberries and cream: $35 million (all tentative)
This money is used to organize the tournament. Somewhere between 12-15% of this revenue forms the prize money which is distributed among the players. The balance of it makes the profit.
However, it was not even near the grand event that it is today. It has been going on since 1877. But it was not followed much outside of Great Britain. Lack of TV coverage, lack of people's interest in the game, all contributed. Also, Wimbledon was only for amateurs, meaning, anyone who played wouldn't get paid any money for playing or winning. Players played but only for glory. Money was out of the equation. So the best players in the world would usually opt out of participating in Wimbledon. Some of the best players who were professionals i.e. players who played tennis all around the world (in privately organized contests) for money weren't even allowed to participate (however, that used to be for every grand slam). Low quality of competition, fewer eyeballs and less footfall, low following and hence, less development. Long story short, today, Wimbledon happens and everyone knows about it, there is a huge fan base for the event (and for tennis in general), for the stars the game has created, everyone knows the knockout brackets of the tournament, records, stats etc. All of this because it has a following. Back in the 50s and 60s, it still hadn't left its mark on the world outside of Britain significantly. And then…
Enter Mark McCormack.
Mark Hume McCormack, who was the founder of IMG (A sports management giant back in the day), was in England in 1967 when he finally got to meet Herman David, the chairman of All England Club and Major David Mills, Secretary of the club. Over the past 18 months, McCormack had been building his business cutting deals with the TV networks, bringing to American TV some of the best sports programmings. He wanted to do the same with Wimbledon because 1)it was an opportunity and 2) because he thought it really deserved to be seen by more people from more countries.
When he sat down for the meeting, he asked David and Mills, if they had a film of what happened in that year's Wimbledon. To which they replied they didn't. This was the condition of the tournament. Wimbledon wasn't on the record. And it wasn't on the record because nobody cared for it.
McCormack suggested they start recording it because he believed a tournament as grand as this must have a recording and highlights. David and Mills sure agreed but there they had one problem. It was not very viable. Producing and filming the tournament was expensive and there weren't many people who were willing to buy the rights for a TV broadcast. McCormack had an answer for this too. He had just launched his television production company, TWI and had put some of the most amazing things from the sports world onto the TV. He offered to handle Wimbledon too with one small condition - that he be given the rights to sell it around the world and take a cut out of the money received from television rights. David and Mills gave him their blessings.
On May 20th, 1968, McCormack signed his 1st deal with the All England Club which made his company IMG, the official representative of the All England Club. This is how the 1st deal looked like:
15 percent of first $50000 in sales
20 percent of next $50000
25 percent of anything above that.
Of course, these numbers get better for McCormack over the years but this wasn't profitable for him until 1971. He stuck with it though.
And finally, McCormack hit the jackpot when he signed a 6-year, $5.2 million (something around $23.09 million in today’s dollars) deal with NBC. NBC was already paying $150,000 for 1-hour highlight package. This is how he brought money into Wimbledon. With more and more money, the quality of the tournament only got better. The event only got grander.
This is how he changed the face of Wimbledon, the tennis tournament. But a lot of other things were to be done to build a personality for Wimbledon, the brand, and more importantly for Wimbledon, the tradition. And tradition is the core of Wimbledon. This became his next course of action.
Since the sponsor logos were not allowed on the centre court to maintain its aesthetics, McCormack sought new and meaningful partnerships with brands. He found one when he brought the iconic Rolex sign on the Centre Court scoreboard, with Rolex becoming Wimbledon's official timekeeping partner. A partnership that is going strong to date.
IBM would soon come on board in 1990, providing all the technical support making the experience better for the audience.
McCormack also introduced corporate hospitality tents with the options of luxury dining with entertainment. He himself didn't like the below-par arrangements for fans and he certainly didn't want other fans to get this experience when they came to attend the tournament. Because it's these fans who will be here or 'will not be here' again in the future. There was a need to serve the fans who came to attend the tournament. And that's what he did.
Purple and Green are the colours that represent Wimbledon. He urged the All England Club to create the purple and green crossed rackets emblem to represent Wimbledon. That could then be used for licensing programs to sell the merchandise. This emblem which symbolises Wimbledon can be found everywhere around the arena, from plates, tennis strings, chairs, umbrellas to shoes, socks, bags, balls, rackets, sweatbands etc. And colours purple and green just make up everything there.
All of this combined with the pre-existing tradition of ‘strawberries and cream' (which is THE snack of Wimbledon since its inception in 1877), cocktails and champagne, McCormack truly created the whole package. He served all of this together as one complete package and delivered it to every fan of the sport. So yes, people came in to watch the best players in tennis but they stayed and still come again for the tradition. And, that's the way McCormack wanted it to be - to make Wimbledon more than just a tennis tournament. He wanted it to be a symbol of tradition, a symbol of royalty, and more importantly, a symbol of excellence.
A lot of other significant developments continued to happen over time that made Wimbledon better, but McCormack taking charge of Wimbledon was truly an inflexion point in its history. And sure, there must have other important people along the way, and McCormack might not have done this all by himself, but, he definitely was the pioneer, the one who envisioned all of it and initiated this process. A revolutionary.
Therefore, It was only fitting that though not having played a single tennis match in his entire life, McCormack was still inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2008.
Wimbledon is definitely at a better place today, but with it, so is everything else in its ecosystem too. There is more revenue meaning higher purses, players earn better, staff earns, sponsors benefit due to sheer popularity it has gained, merchandise manufacturers, hotels near the courts, the transportation required by people to get to court from the hotels, etc., every activity has seen a spurt. A clear indicator of this has been revenue generated and prize money offered to players over the years has only increased since 1968 (except for in 2020, when the tournament was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.)
It has been 50+ years since McCormack decided to partner with Wimbledon. Since then, Wimbledon has not looked back. And obviously, it won’t in the future. Tennis is one of the most-watched sports in the world. Has players from all around the world. Has fans all around the world. And with Wimbledon commanding such high respect in the tennis world, it will only continue to grow.
(Trivia: Today is the 21st of June and it was on this day in 1937, that Wimbledon was first televised on BBC.)
CREDITS:
All the sources have been given their due credit through the links. However, the major source of this story was the book:
Players: The Story of Sports and Money, and the Visionaries Who Fought to Create a Revolution by Matthew Futterman. Contains many stories of such inflection points from the history of sports.
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