THE WORD | Nike’s Loyalty Pays Off After Tiger Woods 15th Major Win

Nike’s years of loyalty to Tiger Woods paid off on yesterday.

Tiger Woods, once a giant of both golf and sponsorships, has been losing in both those fields in recent years. But Nike, which has a history of remaining loyal to the athletes with its endorsement deals, stuck with Woods. A sex scandal and a DUI arrest in 2017 helped drive many other sponsors away.

Nike(NKE) got about $22 million worth of exposure from Woods’ win Sunday, according to analysis by Apex Marketing, a sponsorship analytics research firm. And that included only the original broadcast itself, not the encore airing of the match or the many news clips of him winning.

Woods overcame his many doubters by winning the Masters, his first major tournament win in 11 years. And within minutes Nike had an ad up on social media highlighting the win, and its “Just Do It” slogan. It was seen by tens of millions of people.

“It’s crazy to think a 43-year old who has experienced every high and every low and has just won his 15th major is chasing the same dream as a three-year old,” said the ad. It then played a clip of a three-year old Woods saying “I’m going to beat Jack Nicklaus.”

Nicklaus’ has the record of 18 majors.

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A post shared by WHATS THE WORD (@whatsthewordtv) on Apr 15, 2019 at 11:28am PDT