By
Bloomberg
Published
Feb 14, 2024
Tiger Woods has a new marketing partner after ending a long-term endorsement deal with Nike earlier this year. The 48-year-old legend has inked a pact with TaylorMade Golf to create an apparel line that will debut in May, the company said. Woods already plays with TaylorMade clubs, having first joined forces with the brand in 2017. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
“It won’t help you hit it further but you’ll look better than you do right now,” Woods said during an event to unveil the new brand in California. Woods is the most successful player of the past 25 years with 15 major golf championships — second only to Jack Nicklaus.
His career has been slowed by injuries over the past decade, though. He played in just two PGA Tour events last year and his most recent victory came in 2020.
“This isn’t an endorsement deal where an athlete comes in, you build a brand and you hope things go well. This is a full on, unequivocal, committed partnership. We make every decision together,” said David Abeles, president and chief executive of TaylorMade.
To head up the brand’s operations, the group has recruited Brad Blankinship, a specialist in sports-related lifestyle brands, as the new president of Sun Day Red. He was Boardriders Group until last summer and ran Rvca from 2019 to 2021, then Quiksilver until 2023,
TaylorMade, acquired by South Korean private equity firm Centroid Investment Partners in 2021, is betting that Woods still has marketing power. The new line, called Sun Day Red after Woods’ tradition to wear that color shirt during the final round of tournaments, plans to eventually expand into footwear and clothing for women and kids. It will initially be sold online in the US and Canada.
The partnership with Nike was one of the most lucrative in sports history with Woods earning more than $600 million during a relationship that dated back to 1996. It also had a big impact on both sides, helping boost his star power and build Nike’s fledgling golf business.
FashionNetwork.com with Bloomberg
