IMG: Gambling, Conflict of Interest, and Reform?

Ted Forstmann, billionaire, IMG owner, sports bettor.

It doesn’t look like Ted Forstmann, the billionaire chairman of the sports and entertainment agency IMG, will ever be sanctioned for placing a $40,000 bet on Roger Federer to win the 2007 French Open final over Rafael Nadal.

There is little that the Tennis Integrity Unit can do about Forstmann’s bet, because the unit itself didn’t exist until 2008 and the anti-corruption code that prohibits agents from betting on the sport didn’t come into play until January 2009.

But what it could do, at the very least, is suggest to the sport’s ruling bodies (the ITF, ATP, WTA and Grand Slam Committee) that new rules be in put in place limiting the influence of any corporation that is in a position to seriously damage the integrity of the sport.

And that’s exactly the position IMG stands today. It is without question the most influential company in the sport, representing dozens of players (and many of them high profile ones such as Federer, Nadal, Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova), owning tournaments, negotiating TV rights and sponsorships and also holding positions on the tours’ board of directors. And that’s just in tennis.

IMG has its…