IMG Question

[305to404CANE]

How did this school get started? It seems like it would be a massive investment from the land aspect alone, then factor in all of the facilities.

It's a multi billion dollar international talent agency. They literally created an athletic school to funnel athletes to their agency once they turn pro. It's brilliant, but man, I would take a lot of money to pull this off, and Florida was a perfect place to start this kind of endeavor. It stills boggles the mind when you realize a sports agency literally has a high school, smh lol.

It's way bigger than just kids getting scholarships. It's about identifying them when they're young, and representing them when they turn pro. That's their return on their investment.

It started from the tennis coach Nick Bollettieri as a tennis academy which the likes of Agassi, Courier, Seles, and Sharapova among others went. Sharapova is the poster child as she moved to Bradenton at 4 years old to start training. He is 85 now and in the last 10 years or so it started to grow into more of a full talent academy as he stepped aside and IMG grew it to this now

And every single one of them was represented by IMG. Nick had Venus and Serna, and they're both represented by IMG. Nick was definitely the brain child, but he also had a partnership with IMG for years. It's just a matter of time, before their Football, Soccer, and Basketball roster is just as extensive. Give them about 5 or so years, if not less. I respect the Hustle, cause it's an European model on identifying athletes at a young age.

 

[Sebastianspipe]

How did this school get started? It seems like it would be a massive investment from the land aspect alone, then factor in all of the facilities.

It's a multi billion dollar international talent agency. They literally created an athletic school to funnel athletes to their agency once they turn pro. It's brilliant, but man, I would take a lot of money to pull this off, and Florida was a perfect place to start this kind of endeavor. It stills boggles the mind when you realize a sports agency literally has a high school, smh lol.

It's way bigger than just kids getting scholarships. It's about identifying them when they're young, and representing them when they turn pro. That's their return on their investment.

It started from the tennis coach Nick Bollettieri as a tennis academy which the likes of Agassi, Courier, Seles, and Sharapova among others went. Sharapova is the poster child as she moved to Bradenton at 4 years old to start training. He is 85 now and in the last 10 years or so it started to grow into more of a full talent academy as he stepped aside and IMG grew it to this now

And every single one of them was represented by IMG. It's just a matter of time, before their Football, Soccer, and Basketball roster is just as extensive. Give them about 5 or so years, if not less.

Agree. Genius idea to expand to all sports. **** in soccer around the world, kids are being repped and traded club to club as early as age 6 or 7. Iker for example had been at Real since age 4, thats why them shipping him off a few years ago was so shocking.

 

[AUcane]

IMG has been there for 20-30 years (or longer) and was popularized back in the 80s/90s with bolliteri's tennis academy

 

[RVACane]

I live directly across the street from this ****hole. Place is ridiculous.






(place isn't a ****hole at all, actually it's pretty amazing)

You live in the Tampa area... I thought you were in Broward?

I swear to the Gods you are Aspergers with your memory

I'm ADHD and I have no short term memory. I can remember what I ate in some random restaurant 10 years ago. Pretty fûcked up.

 

[RVACane]

IMG has been there for 20-30 years (or longer) and was popularized back in the 80s/90s with bolliteri's tennis academy

Andre Agassi went there, I believe.

 

[Coach Macho]

How did this school get started? It seems like it would be a massive investment from the land aspect alone, then factor in all of the facilities.

It's a multi billion dollar international talent agency. They literally created an athletic school to funnel athletes to their agency once they turn pro. It's brilliant, but man, I would take a lot of money to pull this off, and Florida was a perfect place to start this kind of endeavor. It stills boggles the mind when you realize a sports agency literally has a high school, smh lol.

It's way bigger than just kids getting scholarships. It's about identifying them when they're young, and representing them when they turn pro. That's their return on their investment.

Southwest Florida definitely was a perfect place to start something like this.

 

[SRQ Cane]

I live directly across the street from this ****hole. Place is ridiculous.






(place isn't a ****hole at all, actually it's pretty amazing)

Take it you coach for southeast in Bradenton? Sarasota here, good to see some local canes.

 

[John77]

Not an actual high school. It's a training facility on steroids that was bought from Nick Bollettieri and David Leadbetter to justify sending your kid off for year round specialized training (and education) back when kids used to play multiple sports. Don't get me wrong they're getting just that, but kinda reminds me of a Chinese gymnastic camp.

Does anyone know how many graduates of IMG have eventually gone on to the NFL at this point? It would be interesting to see what percentage of the kids actually end up signing with the sports agency once they do go pro.

It seems like they would need it to be very high to justify their initial investment.

It's not quite the same as what goes on in Europe with soccer. In Europe the teams themselves are the ones who identify the talent and train the kids, whereas IMG is a third-party doing all of that. The European teams do not necessarily have to post an actual profit when running their youth academies because if they can train one or two guys who end up being stars it more than justifies the loss they take training everyone else.