The move bolsters IMG’s presence in collegiate sports. Host has a 30-year relationship with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and also provides sports marketing services for several top NCAA Division I universities and conferences, including Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma State, Rice, Tennessee, Texas, Western Kentucky and Furman, as well as several athletic conferences, including the Southeastern Conference and the Southern Conference, and the National Football Foundation, the College Football Hall of Fame and the John Wooden Award.
The rights for these schools, conferences, and properties include: corporate sponsorships, radio and TV programmes, publishing, printing, creative design, marketing, Internet, national advertising and signage sales, and numerous lifestyle and event marketing platforms.
Under the agreement, Host will operate as a division of IMG’s College Sports Group, overseen by Pat Battle, Senior Corporate Vice President, IMG College Sports. Tom Stultz will continue to lead the company's college sports marketing and media services business as Senior Vice President & Managing Director, College Sports.
IMG Chairman and CEO, Ted Forstmann, said, "This is another strategic acquisition for IMG as we continue to expand our presence in collegiate sports and further broaden our capabilities with an established industry leader in collegiate marketing, management and media."
Battle added, "The addition of HOST to the IMG family of sports properties, specifically our College Sports Division, makes our college sports offering truly unrivaled in the industry. Today’s announcement firmly establishes IMG as a leader in the dynamic college sports sector, leveraging IMG’s global sales, marketing and media expertise to create national, regional, and local sales opportunities and to better optimize opportunities for our collegiate partners."
Earlier this year, IMG announced the acquisition of The Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC), a full-service licensing and marketing company that assists collegiate institutions with a wide array of licensing and administration services.
The new IMG College Division will bring together licensing, marketing, multimedia rights and media production in an approach that is not available anywhere else in the college market through the combined resources of IMG.
