Out of the Woods
Nike's long-running partnership with Woods exemplified the boldness of the company's marketing model: go all out to ensure that the biggest present and future stars are wearing the famous logo — the golfer hadn't even hit a ball as a professional when he signed with Nike in 1996 — no matter the bill… which, in Tiger’s case, came to at least$500 million through the years, propelling Woods to become 1 of only 4 billionaire athletes.
Running with the stars
In 1964, Phil Knight and his track coach Bill Bowerman started Blue Ribbon Sports; 7 years later, that company rebranded to become the Nike that we know today, making a fresh start with what might be the best $35 ever spent on designing anything, anywhere — paid to graphic design student Carolyn Davidson for creating the famous swoosh.
That logo didn't carry much weight until it became associated with the performances of the very best athletes in the world. But, by the time Nike signed Tiger Woods in 1996, the company was well accustomed to dealing with the biggest names in sports. In fact, Nike’s first dance with star power came 24 years earlier when it signed Ilie Năstase in 1972, the first of many major tennis players to join the brand (later signing John McEnroe, Roger Federer, Serena Williams, and Rafael Nadal, to name but a few).
Not many like Mike
The fledgling retailer may have dipped its toe in the star-brand partnership via tennis and athletics, but it was the historic partnership with the Chicago Bulls’ third pick in the 1984 NBA draft, Michael Jordan, that truly elevated Nike to new heights. This deal flipped the script (and later became a script in the 2023 drama Air) on what a partnership could look like, leading to the creation of the multi-billion dollar Air Jordan brand — a line that, to this day, continues to bring in small-country-GDP levels of sales (coming in at more than $6 billion last year).
With a blueprint for success, Nike wasted little time in securing the biggest names in the biggest sports to wear the swoosh into competition, eventually extending beyond individual athletes. As of today, Nike holds the prestigious position of being the NBA's uniform sponsor, and top-tier soccer teams such as FC Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, and the US national sides all proudly don swoosh-laden kits, banking the millions, and sometimes billions, that come with a Nike sponsorship deal.
