According to Forbes, as of October 2023, the official net worth of the ex-basketball player Magic Johnson has crossed the $1 billion mark. He became only the fourth athlete in history to achieve such an achievement. The first one was Tiger Woods.
The case with the golfer is more exciting and unique, since he became a billionaire even during his active career. How did Woods do it? Probably, he himself would not be able to give an exact answer. We offer to take a look at his career path.
Breakthrough at the outset and the contract with Nike
In 1996, Tiger Woods began his professional career. He immediately stood out from a crowd due to his skill, but almost no one guessed that this guy would become the king of golf for a long time and would eventually be associated with this sport in the majority of the world’s population.
One of the first to notice Tiger’s true potential was Nike, offering the boy a sponsorship contract. Sure, the numbers were not as outstanding as later in his career, but it helped Woods to gain confidence.
Sports results followed. It only took Tiger a year to top the world rankings. He remained in the leading status more than ten years! Success immediately caused a new wave of attention. Woods was invited to do advertising, since various brands wanted to see the athlete as their face.
To put it simply, we saw a classic example of how popularity brings even more popularity. Woods could decide which watch to promote, which drink to become an ambassador of and which car to represent. Electronic Arts (EA) even developed a computer golf simulator, naming it after Tiger Woods.
In 2002, for the first time, the golfer topped the ranking of the world’s richest athletes. Similarly, as it was with the world ranking in golf, he stayed at the top for a very long time. In his most successful years, Woods increased his fortune by 100 million dollars. It is important that more than 90% of all his revenue was generated by advertising, while tournament prizes accounted for only a small part of his income. Tiger still won very often.
In fact, this story could have been continued, but things changed due to some reasons unrelated to sports.
Family scandals and reputation challenges
In the fall of 2009, Tiger Woods was involved in a rather strange accident. He was driving his own car and rammed through a neighbor’s fence while leaving the yard. As it turned out later, it was on this day that his wife, a Swedish model Elin Nordgren, found out about the betrayal. The accident was the result of the athlete’s attempt to escape from home.
This incident provoked a real avalanche of mishaps for Tiger. Prior to this accident, his name was “feeding” big brands, but now it was the mass media turn. A huge number of girls began to tell that they had intimate relations with the star. Journalists wrote articles, filmed stories, and conducted interviews. Often all this was accompanied by photographs or video recordings. All the details were published. About 120 different women were mentioned in total.
Tiger Woods held a big press conference during which he actually confirmed all these stories and apologized to his wife. He made the decision to suspend his sports career in order to improve family relations. It did not help though, and the couple broke up six months later.
Sponsors loss and issues in the career
This situation prompted Tiger to change his life. First, he took psychological courses. Next, he tried to get accepted to the SEALs unit, but he was turned down. This rejection had such a negative effect on the athlete that he was totally depressed. On top of that, his sports performance deteriorated. Tiger won less and less, and due to injuries, he often ended tournaments early.
Sponsors found better investment options and left Woods. Only Nike remained loyal to Tiger.
A grand return to sports
In 2017, Woods had an accident due to painkillers overdose. It seemed that this was going to bring an end to his career.
However, in 2019, Tiger managed to make a triumphant comeback in golf, winning the US Masters, one of the most prestigious tournaments. It was the first outstanding victory in over 10 years. Again, Woods was in the spotlight and played some very quality tournaments, recalling his greatness.
Woods is now one of the founders of the interactive golf league, which should start in early 2024. Once Tiger managed to make an incredible breakthrough as a player. Perhaps now he will act as a genius manager, what is your take on that?
Main achievements and awards
In order to better understand the Woods’ sports heritage, let us name his main achievements:
● He won each of the major golf tournaments at least twice;
● He became the youngest winner of the Career Grand Slam;
● He was the leader of the world ranking for 623 weeks, including 281 weeks in a row;
● In the period from 1999-2000, he won six tournaments in a row. He became the first athlete in more than 50 years to obtain this achievement;
● Tiger won 106 professional tournaments in total.