How much did Tiger Woods earn in his 27-year tenure with Nike? Breaking down the numbers
With the announcement of his new Sun Day Red line, Tiger Woods has officially replaced Nike. After 27 years of partnership, he terminated his deal with the apparel brand last year. For the new season and year, he came up with his own line in partnership with TaylorMade and will presumably play with this until he decides to call it a career.
27 years is a long time to be with a brand. It's also a long time for that brand to continue making products for you and in your line, so there's been plenty of Woods' gear sold by Nike for the last nearly 30 years.
That has resulted in incredible profits for the company, whose golf section grew massive thanks to the PGA Tour player. How much did it earn Woods himself, though?
Woods originally signed a five-year, $40 million deal with Nike as a rookie in 1996. A five-year, $100 million contract followed that in 2001. His next contract was massive, worth $320 million over eight years. What ended up being his final deal with Nike was for $200 million over 10 years, and that took him all the way to 2023, when he didn't renew again.
That means his contracts totaled up to $660 million across the 27 years. For every year he was with Nike, he earned about $24 million. That's an impressive deal and it more than helped contribute to Woods' billion-dollar net worth.
Tiger Woods had several contracts with Nike
Tiger Woods' initial contract and even the ones following it sort of paved the way for Nike's mega deals. Now, athletes like LeBron James and Kevin Durant have what are called lifetime deals with the brand.
They can ultimately terminate them if they need to, but there's no need to meet and sign new contracts every few years when they're just going to remain with the same company. It provides stability for the athletes and is probably a bargain for the company.
It's unclear why Woods didn't ever end up signing a lifetime deal. For the majority of his lifetime, he has worn Nike gear, so it wouldn't have been a surprise. It's also unclear if a lifetime deal would have been terminated at this point or if Woods just elected to move on since his contract was up.
Either way, he's now with Sun Day Red from himself and TaylorMade. At the Genesis Invitational, Woods was wearing his new logo and not the familiar Nike gear for the first time since he debuted.
Golf fans have really never seen Woods play an event without the Nike swoosh adorning almost everything he had or wore. For the first time ever, he's moved on and has a new logo across his hat.
It's also currently unclear how much longer the 48-year-old golfer will be on tour and competing. He just recovered enough from surgery to commit to once-a-month appearances, including the Masters, US Open and the rest of the major tournaments.