Tiger To Top $1 Billion In '09 Even Without Buick's Help

Ron Sirak authors Golf Digest's annual look at overpaid aggressively compensated golfers and as usual, the numbers are staggering. ($3.5 million in off course earnings for Rory Sabbatini? Rory Sabbatini!). I look at this list and say, wow, Leno is a bargain at $17 million a year.

Twenty-two players have made the list all six years of its existence, led again by Tiger Woods with $117,337,626 in on-course and off-course earnings, moving him within $115 million of becoming golf's first $1 billion player (see chart below). And even Woods is not immune from the economic turmoil. His contract with General Motors, which earned him nearly $50 million over nine years, was terminated by mutual consent at the end of 2008 with a year left to run.

But despite the economic situation, it appears companies will stay active with athletes and the games they play for one simple reason: It makes business sense. The PR difficulty of investing in athletes during tough times "certainly is a perception issue," says David Carter, University of Southern California sports-business professor and founder of Sport Business Group, a strategic-marketing firm based in Los Angeles.

Comments

[thusgone]

i'd like to see a little more gratitude out of these guys.

granted they are amazing at what they do, and it's not easy to get where they are, but in terms of utility to the world, playing golf has to rank pretty low on the list. somewhere just above commenting on blog posts about how much golfers make, i'd reckon.

[Pickworth]

Thusgone, I think you'd clean 'em up in the self-awareness department, which puits you ahead in the utility stakes, in my view.

[Bill V]

Wow!

Actually, I don;t give a rat's ass.

[neuf de fer]

Wait, didn't DLIII once say that (paraphrasing here) "Golfers were among the most productive members of society."? He was complaining about taxes.