Tiger Woods is "restructuring his contract with Nike to
more than double its current value," paying him between $80-
90M over the next five years, according to sources cited in
a GOLF WORLD report. Nike's decision to renegotiate Woods'
deal, for which talks "would have started within the next
year anyway," was "accelerated by those two much-discussed"
TV commercials -- Woods bouncing a golf ball off a club head
and him "bringing a bit of magic to the driving range."
Woods' original five-year deal with Nike, which he signed in
'96, was valued at $40M. Sources add that MA-based Titleist
will "cut its financial obligation to Woods in half," to $2M
annually and will "no longer have its name on his golf bag,"
with Rolex or AmEx -- both of whom currently have
endorsement deals with Woods -- as "likely contenders" to
place their names on his golf bag. Also, two additional
sources say that Titleist will "give up its right to use
Woods' image in its advertising, while a third source said
that while that was likely, it is one of the details yet to
be worked out." Woods' agent Mark Steinberg: "We are
restructuring both deals. The impetus was the conflict that
arose [between Nike and Titleist] on the advertising" (see
THE DAILY, 7/7). Titleist Chair & CEO Wally Uihlein said,
"What I do know is that I am continuing to pay out dollars
to watch Nike use Tiger to sell their golf ball" (GOLF
WORLD, 8/27 issue). In Dallas, Brad Townsend writes that
the Woods ad in which he bounces a golf ball off the face of
his pitching wedge is "commercial history." Woods, on the
ad: "It's really not as hard as you might think if you grew
up playing baseball" (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 8/24).
