Tiger Woods and Nike’s ‘seismic’ partnership is over. Where do they go from here?
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It was a hell of a round, Tiger.”
Georgia Bulldogs manager just reached $150 million trade agreement
After 27 years, 15 major championships, 82 PGA Tour wins and hundreds of millions of dollars in endorsement contracts, Tiger Woods and Nike announced the end of their collaboration on Monday
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When Nike and Woods sealed their first deal in 1996, a 20-year-old who had just turned professional became the heir to a $40 million fortune.
A six-time junior world championship winner and the first three-peat U.S. amateur champion, as Nike looked to sign the most talented prodigies across the sporting world, few came more prodigious than the Stanford University starlet.
Promised across a five-year deal, the numbers were remarkable for any athlete, let alone for a rookie, yet Woods was a remarkable professional debutant.
When Woods signed a five-year endorsement contract with Nike in 2000 worth an estimated $85 million—an unprecedented sum in sporting history at the time—his status as golf’s dominant force and a global sporting superstar was concrete.
For Nike, which is more typically associated with other sports, it was a dream come true. With Woods marking the sportswear company’s “significant entry” into golf, the partnership—and its impact—was “seismic,” explained Ben Peppi, sports commercial expert at JMW Solicitors.
“For a long time after Michael Jordan’s retirement, pre-Cristiano Ronaldo, Tiger Woods was Nike,” Peppi told CNN Sport.
