By Darren Rovell
ESPN Golf Online
Wednesday, September 20

Things you can buy for $100 million:

• Naming rights for the Seattle Seahawks' new stadium for the next 20 years.
• The Carolina Hurricanes.
• Tiger Woods for five years

	With each tournament Tiger Woods plays, Nike gets enormous exposure.

Nike reportedly had $100 million to spend last week and obviously thought Woods was the best investment for its future. Given his consistent success on the course, odds are the Beaverton, Ore. company is going to come out a winner.

"If I had $100 million to spend, and if it was between the best mutual fund and Tiger Woods, I couldn't write the check out to Tiger fast enough," said Dean Bonham, president of the Bonham Group, a sports consulting firm. "You'd have to break my arm to stop me."

Several published reports estimated Michael Jordan's total worldwide economic impact to be $10 billion. But Bonham says Woods, because of several factors, will probably triple that number by the time his golfing career is over. In comparison, Woods, who reportedly will make approximately $44 million on endorsements this year, likely will surpass Jordan for the biggest annual endorsement salary in August 2002.

"You look at Tiger's age and his universal appeal," Bonham said. "He has that ability to get the masses out there to buy clubs, play golf and buy merchandise. He's fueling the Internet and pumping up TV ratings. Just think, in the next 20 years the shear magnitude of the number of ways Tiger will impact the business of golf. It's amazing."

And if $100 million is too much for you, consider that the number likely includes royalties if Nike Golf performs well under Tiger's reign. Jordan only had a base endorsement salary of about $5 million, but made up to $15 million a year on royalties for what some believe to have been every basketball shoe sold by Nike from the early '90s until recently.

For Nike Golf, there's really only one key way to getting big: Tiger's name.

The company hopes Woods' performance on the course will help sell clothes, hats, shoes, gloves and balls with that famed swoosh on them. Since Woods' switch in late May, the Nike golf ball (developed just last year) now has a 4 percent share of the already crowded ball market. It's now on target to slowly chip away from Titleist's majority share.

	“	"You look at Tiger's age and his universal appeal. He has that ability to get the masses out there to buy clubs, play golf and buy merchandise. He's fueling the Internet and pumping up TV ratings. Just think, in the next 20 years the shear magnitude of the number of ways Tiger will impact the business of golf. It's amazing." ”
		— Sports consultant Dean Bonham

Industry insiders know that apparel will only take Nike so far in its quest to be at the top of the golf business empire. But without selling clubs -- since the stress on the proper equipment lies at the heart and soul of every golfer -- the company won't be using Woods enough.

"My guess is that (clubs) will be part of the deal that will not be announced and will happen near the end of the five-year agreement," said Bob Williams, president of Burns Sports, a company that matches advertisers with athletes for endorsements. "They will eventually make clubs, and Tiger will be involved in the design process, just like (Jack) Nicklaus and (Arnold) Palmer were."

While published reports have tabbed a Nike golf club line to be released as soon as next year, Nike Golf president Bob Wood downplayed the suggestion.

"The club business is not a lay-up, and the decision to enter is not one we take lightly," he said. And it can't be, since getting in to the club business would likely include acquiring a small golf club manufacturer, because Nike probably would not start from scratch.

Back to that number again -- you know, the one with eight zeros.

It still seems excessive to some, but consider this: Tiger has given the Nike swoosh at least $50 million of advertising time on TV this year. So says Ray Howland, golf editor of Joyce Julius & Associates, a sponsorship evaluation company. Howland also says that the swoosh will easily receive more than $100 million worth of free advertising from Woods' exposure over the course of the five-year extension.

Howland computes that during the 2000 PGA Tour season, Nike logos worn by Woods alone earned more than $40 million in comparable TV commercial value -- and that's just on weekends. "Even if Woods' exposure falls by 50 percent the next five years, and taking into account a 10 percent yearly increase in the cost of 30-second commercial rates, Nike's exposure from Woods will easily exceed $100 million," he said.

Howland also added that news programs and sports highlight shows featuring Woods also will yield Nike $20 million worth of free advertising over the next five years. Newspapers, magazines and Internet hits are projected to generate about $25 million over the five-year period.

With Woods walking around wearing anywhere from six to nine logos on any given Sunday, will Nike attempt to "swooshify" him even more?

"How could you possibly be 'swooshed' out?" Williams asks. "They've worked so hard to build up recognition that they have the right to use it as much as they can."

Some have speculated that like Davis Love III and Justin Leonard, who now wear shirts with big polo horses to maximize the exposure for their shirt sponsor Ralph Lauren, Nike might fatten the swoosh on Tiger to maximize exposure even more.

But Neal Pilson, the former president of CBS Sports, says Nike has reason to be conservative with the swooshes on Woods.

"I know that their executives are concerned with the overswooshing issue and not pushing a constant visual of the Nike logo," said Pilson, now president of consulting firm Pilson Communications. "They are aware of the negative reactions and backlash. I think it's unlikely, even with the $100 million on the line, that there will be more swooshes or the swoosh will be twice as big."

And while Nike president Wood says that the company is happy with how Tiger looks on the course, Rick Burton, director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon, thinks it's possible that there will be a new logo for Woods around the corner.

"It wouldn't surprise me if they gave him a Jordan Jumpman-like logo -- (something of Woods) pumping his fists like an uppercut (or) making a shot with the club straight up in the air, with his knees bent," Burton said.

As for Woods, reaching the often predicted $1 billion mark in endorsements now appears to be easily surpassable. Williams says the Nike deal will raise the cost of Woods as an endorser up to $8 to $10 million a year. It also will make him almost untouchable in the endorsement world for companies that are not generating billions of dollars in sales.

Darren Rovell covers sports business for ESPN.com.