SANDWICH, England -- Fortune Magazine, a longtime observer of the financial tide around the globe, has turned its eyes toward Tiger Woods and found ...
Not much, apparently.
The magazine's website posted a story this week stating that the reason Woods signed a deal to hawk a Japanese pain-relief rub was because he's out of money after being cleaned out in his divorce and losing several lucrative endorsement deals in the wake of his sex scandal.
Like many Americans, Woods is carrying a fat mortgage, on his new Jupier Island abode, too.
Said the story: It's no secret that Woods, once king of the sports world, has suffered financially since his fall from grace. His endorsement list shrank and his marriage ended in a divorce settlement reportedly worth $100 million. But now he may actually be hurting for funds. At the very least, there are signs that he isn't generating enough to comfortably cover his costs.
Howver, the biggest note was yet to come. The story suggests that Nike, which has an entire golf division built around Woods, docked him millions in pay as penalty for his humiliating indiscretions.
Said the story: With giants like Gillette, Accenture, Tag Heuer, and Gatorade having jumped ship, Tiger's major deals are down to three: Nike, EA Sports, and Kowa. His EA Sports video game, Tiger Woods PGA Tour '12, set a first-week franchise record of 225,000 games sold. But our source also tells us that Tiger's Nike money fell by as much as 50% in 2010 (to about $10 million, down from $20 million in 2009) and that he will get the same reduced amount for 2011. The reason? Nike penalized him for his indiscretions, reducing his payment for two years as a response to his public behavior. Nike had no comment.
Woods' agent denied that his lone client is in financial hot water, but did not speak to the particulars of the Nike details cited.
"Tiger Woods is financially sound and strong, contrary to wide-ranging rumors and inaccurate figures in the media," Mark Steinberg wrote in an email to Forbes. "Stating anything else is incorrect and factually baseless."
The original Fortune story can be found here: http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.c
om/2011/07/15/is-tiger-woods-runnin
g-out-of-money/
Meanwhile, things seem to be going swimmingly for Elin Nordegren, who reportedly received a $100 million divorce settlement from Woods. According to the New York Post, she is dating wealthy American investor Jamie Dingman, who has acres of money on hand, apparently.
That story is here: http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/eli
n_dating_billionaire_son_O8mqWO21Bn
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