Mark Steinberg is a sports agent who has been representing top golfers since 1992. He is a partner at Excel Sports Management. where he heads the professional golf division. Established in 2002, Excel Sports Management is a full-service sports management and marketing agency representing top athletes in professional basketball, baseball and golf. On June 6, 2011,

Tiger Woods Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer. He is tied for first in PGA Tour wins, ranks second in men's major championships, and holds numerous golf records. * * * Woods is widely regarded as ...

announced he would be going to Excel with Steinberg. Since that announcement, Steinberg has continued to build his division, including signing nine-time

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also k ...

winner

Matt Kuchar Matthew Gregory Kuchar (born June 21, 1978) is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour and formerly the Nationwide Tour. He has won nine times on the PGA Tour. Kuchar briefly enjoyed success in the early 2000s before sufferin ...

and

Danielle Kang Danielle Grace Kang (born October 20, 1992) is an American professional golfer currently playing on the LPGA Tour. As an amateur, she won the U.S. Women's Amateur twice, in 2010 and 2011. She won the 2017 KPMG Women's PGA Championship, an LPG ...

. Previously, he led the global golf division of the large corporate sports agency

IMG img or IMG is an abbreviation for image. img or IMG may also refer to: * IMG (company), global sports and media business headquartered in New York City but with its main offices in Cleveland, originally known as the "International Management Gro ...

. While there, Steinberg shaped the careers of many golfers, including Tiger Woods,

Steve Stricker Steven Charles Stricker (born February 23, 1967) is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour and the PGA Tour Champions. He has twelve victories on the PGA Tour, including the WGC-Match Play title in 2001 and two FedEx Cup play ...

and

Annika Sörenstam Annika Charlotta Sörenstam (; born 9 October 1970) is a Swedish professional golfer. She is regarded as one of the best female golfers in history. Before stepping away from competitive golf at the end of the 2008 season, she had won 90 inter ...

. Steinberg has represented Tiger Woods since 1998. As the agent for Tiger Woods, Steinberg has been described as "the de facto chief executive of (Tiger's) golf and endorsement empire" and among the "three or four most powerful people in golf". Steinberg has described Mr. Woods as "one of my best friends". Steinberg parted with IMG in May 2011. Steinberg sits on the following boards;

Tiger Woods Foundation TGR Foundation was established in 1996 by Tiger Woods and his father, Earl Woods, to create and support community-based programs that improve the health, education, and welfare of all children in America. Currently, the foundation has establish ...

Board of Governors, Annika Sörenstam Foundation Board and Cleveland Sports Commission.

Education and background

Steinberg is from

Peoria, Illinois Peoria ( ) is the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, United States, and the largest city on the Illinois River. As of the United States Census, 2020, 2020 census, the city had a population of 113,150. It is the principal city of the Peoria ...

and attended

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

as an undergraduate where he was a member of the Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity. He earned a spot on the Illinois basketball team as a walk-on and played for Illinois in the Final Four of the

NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as NCAA March Madness and commonly called March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams from ...

in 1989. He attended law school at

University of Illinois College of Law The University of Illinois College of Law (Illinois Law or UIUC Law) is the law school of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a public university in Champaign, Illinois. It was established in 1897 and offers the J.D., LL.M., and J.S. ...

Career history

While in law school Steinberg interned at IMG and he joined IMG as an employee in 1992. He started out working in team sports and golf. In 1993 he signed the popular golfers

Michelle McGann Michelle McGann (born December 30, 1969) is an American professional golfer who plays on the LPGA Tour. Amateur career Born in West Palm Beach, Florida, McGann was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at age 13 and was a three-time Florida state jun ...

and

Karrie Webb Karrie Ann Webb (born 21 December 1974) is an Australian professional golfer. She plays mainly on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour, and also turns out once or twice a year on the ALPG Tour in her home country. She is a member of the World Golf Hall of ...

. The following year, he recruited

to IMG. Sörenstam won the

U.S. Women's Open The U.S. Women's Open, one of 15 national golf championships conducted by the United States Golf Association (USGA), is the oldest of the LPGA Tour's five major championships, which includes the Chevron Championship, Women's PGA Championship, W ...

in 1995 which lifted both Sörenstam and Steinberg into a new level of prominence. In 1998,

retained Steinberg as his agent, at that time Steinberg was just 30 years old.

Activities as sports agent

As the sports agent for Tiger Woods, Steinberg is involved in many activities relating to his client including advising his client on managing his public image, his schedule and his finances. As his agent Steinberg had negotiated endorsement deals worth "hundreds of millions of dollars". In November, 2009, when Woods was involved in an early morning car accident at his home in Florida, Steinberg was involved in managing the media access to his client during the ensuing media frenzy.

Legal issues

On June 2, 2012, Steinberg was stopped by police officers at a sobriety checkpoint on Saw Mill River Road at 10:43 p.m., in Ardsley, a suburb about 15 miles north of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Officers administered a field sobriety check on him after smelling alcohol, according to Sgt. David Fisher of the Ardsley Police Department. Police said that Steinberg had a blood alcohol content of .19 percent, more than twice the legal limit in New York State. Steinberg was charged with DWI, as well as Aggravated DWI for blowing greater than .18 percent on the Breathalyzer test. He was booked and held for a couple of hours until he was released to a third party later that night. His license was eventually revoked as a result of the incident.

References

External links

IMG World website

TigerWoods.com

Interview With The Agent: Mark Steinberg
{{DEFAULTSORT:Steinberg, Mark American sports agents University of Illinois alumni People from Peoria, Illinois Living people Year of birth missing (living people)