Source: Statista
More than 27 years after a 20-year-old golfing hotshot named Tiger Woods signed a $40-million endorsement deal with Nike, one of the most iconic partnerships in sports has come to an end. On Monday, Tiger Woods took to his social media accounts to announce the long-rumored split and express his gratitude to Nike founder Phil Knight and the employees and athletes he worked with over the past three decades. Nike responded by posting a classic shot of Tiger clad in his iconic Sunday red polo along with the tagline: “It was a hell of a round, Tiger.”
With respect to his own future, Woods wrote: “People will ask if there is another chapter. Yes, there will certainly be another chapter.” And while it’s hard to imagine Tiger Woods walking the fairways dressed in anything else than Nike, we all witnessed Roger Federer ending his career wearing Uniqlo gear and shoes from Swiss brand On – something that seemed impossible just a few years earlier. Speaking of Federer, the Swiss’s long-term partnership with Nike is probably one of the few that matches or eclipses the legacy that Woods and Nike built together. That is of course behind the gold standard for all athlete endorsement deals: the Jordan brand, which is bringing in billions in sales for Nike every year, even 20 years after Michael Jordan retired for good.
As our chart shows, Nike’s golf division has never cracked the billion-dollar mark in terms of annual sales. According to the company’s annual reports, Nike Golf revenue peaked just shy of $800 million in fiscal 2013, before dropping below $600 million in 2017, after which Nike stopped breaking out revenue figures for its golf business. For Tiger Woods, his partnership with the Swoosh paid of handsomely as well. According to media reports, his four contracts with the Oregon-based sportswear giant were worth at least $500 million over the past 27 years.
