Five Years Of Rory's Endorsements Worth (At Least) $129 Million
/Brian Keogh does a super job breaking down the court papers and accusations touched on rather sloppily in the intial reports.
While he did not get a quote in from Peter Alliss, Keogh does pick this out of the claims filed.
Under the contracts negotiated by his previous management company, Mr McIlroy could have expected to receive approximately US $13 million in 2013. Under the contracts negotiated by our clients, Mr McIlroy will receive approximately US$ 50 million in 2013. The contracts run for periods of up to five years and have an approximate value of US$ 129 million. It should be noted that this is the minimum sum Mr McIlroy will receive irrespective of performance on the golf course, while his previous contracts were heavily dependent on his golf performance.”
A UNICEF payment issue fleshed out by Keogh is probably the biggest eye-opener since it suggests Horizon was doing what was necessary to protect the client's image, but the client is still mad about it even though it ultimately didn't cost him a dime. McIlroy pulled out of a trip to Haiti to add the Valero Texas Open to his schedule.
It will also be interesting to see if Graeme McDowell's allegiance to Horizon is explored. The trial is set for October, 2014, not long after the Ryder Cup where McDowell and McIllory are almost sure to be teammates. Good luck Captain McGinley!
**He's downplaying any issue for the team, reports Brian Keogh.
In the meantime McIlroy must piece together his game to retrieve something from his worst season as a professional golfer. When McIlroy left his first manager, Chubby Chandler, to join Horizon his stated ambition was to be No 1 on and off the course, the best golfer in the world and the highest earner. For a spell he was both, before the golfing juggernaut that is Tiger Woods re-established pre-eminence on the course, and after the consequent restoration of his reputation, off it as well, with lucrative deals to appear in China and Turkey in the next month. There could be no greater evidence of his commercial rehabilitation than the willingness of emerging golf nations to seek out Woods to project on their behalf.
