After more than 27 years together, Tiger Woods and the world’s leading sports apparel company, Nike, have ended their partnership.
Since going professional in 1996, the 15-time major golf winner has been using the brand’s gear and goods.
Woods, who announced the split on his social media, said, “The days since have been filled with so many amazing moments and memories, if I started naming them, I could go on forever.”
Nike also spoke to the development, saying that it was an honour for them to partner with “one of the greatest athletes the world has ever seen.”
As a twenty-year-old going professional in 1996, Woods, now 48, inked his first deal with Nike for $40 million (£31.5 million) over five years.
After Woods dominated golf for almost ten years and moved up to second place on the list of men’s major titles, three behind leader Jack Nicklaus, the arrangement turned into one of the richest collaborations in sports history.
Over his career, Woods secured many contracts with Nike, including a $200 million contract worth of 10 years, making him one of the most well-known athletes in the world.
Interim marketing and strategy Professor Tim Derdenger of Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business in the United States said that Woods and Nike’s long-term collaboration was “a win-win for everybody.”
The scholar was a member of a study team in 2013 that examined Woods’s effect on sales of Nike golf balls, which he began using in 2000.
Derdenger stated that although Nike paid Woods $200 million (£157 million) to sponsor him over a ten-year period, the company made back 60% of its investment through sales of golf balls in the US.
According to him, Nike “didn’t have a strong prominent position in the golf industry” when Woods initially went professional in 1996. As a result, when the company introduced its golf line with the rising star, it struck gold.
The professor said, “What better person in hindsight to then bring out this phenomenal teenage, generational player to then launch their golf brand and apparel brand for Nike? He is golf, he is that person that brought the game to a massive amount of people over the last 25 years.
“This was sort of the MO (modus operandi) for Nike and it still is to this day is to go out and find these athletes that are generational, or some of the best of their time, and build brands around them to help them drive sales of Nike products.”
In a message posted on social media, Woods, who made his comeback to competition in November of last year following a seven-month injury layoff, expressed gratitude for his almost three-decade partnership with Nike.
Even after a scandal involving Woods’ personal life surfaced in 2009 when he was at the height of his game, and he acknowledged cheating on his then-wife, Nike stuck with him through all of his ups and downs.
At the time, Nike stated that it was holding fast and had provided Woods its “full support” while big businesses including Gillette, a manufacturer of razor blades, Accenture, a management consulting firm, and AT&T, a telecom company, severed their affiliation with him.
On Tuesday, Woods thanked staff and other athletes as well as Phil Knight, the co-founder and former chief executive of Nike, for his “passion and vision”.
Nike then said that the company was “grateful to have been a part” of Woods’ career, saying, “Throughout the course of our partnership, we have witnessed along with the rest of the world, how Tiger not only redefined the sport of golf, but broke barriers for all of sport.”
In response to inquiries about his future, Woods told his supporters, “People will ask if there is another chapter. Yes, there will certainly be another chapter.”
Since getting a leg injury in an automobile accident in 2021, Woods has had a restricted schedule. He stated in December that he would only participate in one tournament per month in 2024 while he healed from ankle surgery, but he still thought he could be successful on the PGA Tour.
Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi
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