A legal eagle for Tiger Woods

On 8 January, Tiger Woods and Nike confirmed that their 27 year partnership was coming to an end. This concludes one of the most successful brand partnerships in sports history, which reportedly saw payments of $500m to Tiger and generated billions in sales of golf products for Nike. 

The next question is where will Tiger go next. He is due to return to the PGA tour at the Genesis Invitational in February and will effectively launch his new partnership there.

Interestingly, Tiger owns all of the rights in his TW logo so this will have given him significant leverage in negotiations with a new partner as well as the option to launch his own company under the TW brand. When Roger Federer left Nike for UNIQLO in 2018, Nike retained the rights to the RF logo as they had registered it as a trade mark and the agreement between the parties was silent as to who owned it after the conclusion of the agreement. This resulted in a dispute between Federer and Nike, which culminated in Federer having to secure the transfer of the rights in the RF logo to him two years later. 

These are important lessons for those entering into partnerships with third parties. It is important to consider who will own rights to brands that contain an individual's name or initials when an agreement concludes and build this into the terms if necessary.  

One option available to Tiger would be to partner with an established golf brand that has manufacturing and distribution in place but to take an equity deal rather than an endorsement deal, which could potentially be even more lucrative.

I will certainly be tuning in to the Genesis Invitational in February for the big reveal, as well as following the nature of Tiger's new brand partnership.