Rolex Coolness: Mark McCormack
Another Rolex Myth Busted And Mystery Solved!!!
1986 Rolex President Ad
This is the quintessential 1980s Rolex ad. In 1986 Ronald Reagan was the President of the United States and Rolex was reaching new heights in status and popularity.
This cool vintage Rolex ad has a very interesting detail. One of the unanswered Rolex folklore questions (until today) always was:
Where did the term The Rolex President come from?
It has always been put forth that Rolex began referring to the bracelet on the Rolex Day-Date as "The President" bracelet (around 1967) but never referred to the the actual Day-Date as the Rolex President. It was believed that people just started refering to the Rolex Day-Date as The President, but that Rolex never specifically referred to it as such.
It turns out that was a false myth and for the first time, in 1986 we have direct evidence of Rolex specifically referring to a watch model named:
"The Rolex President Day-Date Chronometer. Available in 18kt. gold, with matching bracelet."
This ad was very popular in the 1980s and I believe it clearly proves it was indeed Rolex that specifically coined the term: The Rolex President.
Wow!!!!! Rolex appears to have briefly referred to the watch as The Rolex President, then they stopped, and went back to calling it just The Day-Date, but the term "The Rolex President"stuck, and once the cat was out of the bag, that was it!!!!! Another fascinating Rolex mystery solved!!!!!!
Mark McCormack
World's First Super-Agent To The Stars
Founder Of International Management Group (IMG)
Mark McCormack who is featured in the ad above was born in 1930 and passed away at the age of 73 in 2003. Mark was a attorney in the the Untied States and wrote many books. He also founded a was chairman of International Management Group (IMG) which is an international management company which pioneered managing the commercial affairs for sports figures, and celebrities.
Mark McCormack was a pioneer in sports celebrity management and in the early 1960s was the first person to really understand the potential of marketing sports personalities on TV. As a matter of fact, International Management Group's first client was Arnold Palmer, and he went on to sign and manage superstar sports figures Jackie Stewart, John-Claude Killy, Björn Borg, Rod Laver, Chris Evert-Lloyd, Greg Norman, Pete Sampras, Michael Schumacher, Derek Jeter, Charles Barkley, Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh.
As I mentioned, Arnold Palmer was his first client and he got Arnold $500 to use his likeness in Heinz Ketchup ads for a year, and 45 years later he represented Tiger Woods and got him $80 Million in commercial endorsements in a year!!!
He was also hired to represent celebrities like Kate Moss, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pope John Paul II and even fashion super-model Kate Moss.
Mark McCormack published many famous books, including the New York Times best-seller, What They Don't Teach You At Harvard Business School.
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