Williams Sisters and Coke: Archives Reveals What Could Have Been

As a result, on September 27, 1999, IMG announced both Venus and Serena Williams had exclusively signed with their sports marketing firm. (View Exhibit 1)  The press release names Stephanie Tolleson, IMG’s senior international vice president, as the main point of contact and her team immediately got to work.

Within three months, Venus and Serena had filmed a television commercial for Coca-Cola’s Aquarius drink, to be used only in Japan.  Although the contract wasn’t officially signed yet, Coca-Cola Japan’s agency, Dentsu, paid the full price on March 6, 2000, according to Fumiko Matsuki’s memo to Mark H. McCormack, IMG’s founder and CEO.  (Although McCormack was not directly involved in the day-to-day business dealings, he did request he be kept in the loop on all of IMG’s high-profile clients and was always willing to step in and chat with a potential sponsor, if needed.)

Matsuki’s memo also notes the commercial is slated to start running on March 8th, indicating they would only have had a handful of hours left to sign the contract.  (View Exhibit 3)  (Note: as is not unusual in this fast-moving industry, the commercial was made before the contract was actually signed!).

Although Tolleson was tapped to run point on all IMG-initiated business opportunities for the Williams sisters, the lead negotiator for this Japan-only commercial endorsement was a little known (at least within IMG’s headquarters) IMG employee in their Tokyo branch office, T. Joyama.

As the contract was being finalized, Mark McCormack was asking for the opinions from the US-based representation team members on “TJ”. (View Exhibit 2)  Regardless of who negotiated the Japanese commercial deal for the sisters, the point remains the same: Richard Williams would not have been able to handle this sort of big-ticket international endorsement deal alone.

Fast-forward a few months to July, Tolleson’s team has set their sights on leveraging the first deal into a larger partnership with Coca-Cola and they’re looking for any possible way in.

One teammate, Julian Brand, reached out to Leslie McCormack, leader of IMG’s London office, on July 25th.  “I understand through the grapevine,” Brand wrote, “that MHM met the President of Coca Cola [sic] GB during Wimbledon this year.” (View Exhibit 4)  As mentioned earlier, McCormack (“MHM”) was eager to use his network as IMG’s founder to benefit his company’s clients.  In this case, Brand is asking if it would be appropriate for McCormack to jump in here.

Another avenue the representation team took was reaching out to Diet Coke on the US-side directly.  The email to McCormack on October 4, 2000 was sent from team lead Tolleson herself summarizing the recent activity with Diet Coke. (View Exhibit 5)  Tolleson recounts the initial discussions with Diet Coke in the spring and early summer, then explains Diet Coke’s wish to use the Williams for a one-off celebrity campaign while the sisters hoped for a long-term relationship.  Of course, there was also the added challenge of a potential rival deal, so, as Tolleson writes, “we were really pushing Coke for an offer.”  Just as Brand does with the GB pitch, Tolleson politely requests McCormack’s help with re-opening discussions with Coca-Cola.

And McCormack was able to do just that.  Reading an email from November 1st, Peter Johnson, a member of the Williams sisters’ representation team, mentions two Coca-Cola delegates are excited to meet with McCormack. (View Exhibit 6)  Johnson briefs McCormack on the power players at Coke and warns him “no one is willing to pull the trigger” on signing Venus and Serena.  It’s possible bringing along another IMG account executive to the meeting would start to form a “much closer working relationship” akin to Coke’s with CAA, as Johnson suggests is the intention of both Coca-Cola executives.

Did all the behind-the-scenes work achieve its intended goal back in 2000?  Unfortunately, the McCormack Papers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Library don’t reveal any additional paperwork or internal IMG documentation to support any theories.  However, we can scroll through the roster of Venus and Serena Williams’ current partners to find our answer: Serena is a high-level athlete of Gatorade’s…a Pepsi company.