"In 1996 a group of Nike marketing executives gathered in a fourth-floor conference room on the company's Beaverton, Ore., campus and looked into the future. On the whiteboard were the names of five possibilities for the company's next big sponsorship push. Two of them, the NFL and the NBA, were in sports where Nike was well established, but the other three represented worlds where Nike was all but unknown: the Brazilian soccer team, the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team and a teenage golfing phenom named Tiger Woods. Wall Street was waiting to see what Nike would do to follow up Michael Jordan and the enormously successful Air Jordan line of footwear.
When the company announced that it had signed a multiyear, multimillion-dollar deal with Woods, the reaction was swift--Nike stock fell 5%. Says Bob Wood, one of the officials in that room: "They thought we had overpaid for him." When Tiger Woods came on board with Nike Golf in 1996, the company was a $120M business, based primarily and apparel and footwear sales. Fast forward to today, 11 years after Nike Golf signed Tiger Woods. Nike Golf is a thriving $600M business now built around clubs and golf balls in addition to just apparel and footwear.While Tiger Woods is one of the main reasons for Nike Golf's enormous success, he's not the only reason the company is thriving.
Club guru Tom Stites and golfball guru Rock Ishi have come up with innovative products ranging from the SUMO square driver (KJ Choi has ridden the driver to multiple tour wins this season) to the Nike ONE golf ball. Nike Golf has invested substantial money in their 31,000 square foot plus Research and Development facility outside of Dallas.And while Nike Golf might not have the large stable of athletes that Titleist and Callaway possess, they certainly have quality endorsers led by Tiger Woods. Justin Leonard, KJ Choi, Trevor Immelman, Stewart Cink, Rory Sabbatani and of course Michelle Wie. Nike Golf's endorsers, by the way, sport nothing by the Nike swoosh on their apparel, footwear and headwear.......a pre-requisite for any athlete who signs with Nike Golf.Nike Golf Global Sports Marketing Director Kel Devlin will join me on this weekend's edition of Sports Business Radio to discuss the growing success of Nike Golf.
Devlin is attending this week's PGA Championship in Tulsa, Oklahoma.I'll also be joined on this weekend's show by Lamell McMorris, the spokesperson for the World Umpires Association. The Major League Baseball umpires union said Monday that it is refusing to cooperate with a request for background checks from commissioner Bud Selig's office, calling the initiative a "knee-jerk, misguided witch hunt" in response to the NBA betting scandal involving referee Tim Donaghy.The umpires are willing to consider submitting to background checks, but only if MLB comes to the bargaining table and negotiates the provisions in "good faith," Lamell McMorris, was quoted as saying earlier this week.I'd like to get McMorris on the show this weekend to find out what the World Umpires Association is looking for from MLB in order to cooperate with these background checks. For the record, I happen to agree with Mr. McMorris that this initiative by Selig's office is a "knee-jerk" reaction to the Tim Donaghy gambling scandal in the NBA. Why hasn't Selig subjected his umpires to background checks before this?
And how should an umpire like Ed Montague, with 31 years of experience feel when someone tells him that after three decades of loyal service, they now need to cavity search him to make sure he hasn't decided to go "rogue" like Donaghy.Think about it. How would you feel if you were sitting at your desk today and your boss came up to you and said you needed to pee in a cup, take a lie detector test and hand over your personal information so he or she could conduct a thorough background check on you because Tom over in accounting was found cooking the books last week?I understand the cause for heightened security by MLB, the NBA and other sports leagues. The integrity of their games is of the utmost importance. But these leagues had better not go about conducting these background checks in a heavy handed manner or I really think it will come back and bite them in the end.
title: "Nike sprit ahead"
date: june 27, 2007
page: 1
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