Winless Tiger still tops Forbes richest athlete list
Tiger Woods, who has fallen to 13th in the world golf rankings without a title since November of 2009, remains atop the list of the world’s highest-paid athletes according to Forbes magazine. While Woods has seen his annual earnings plunge $50 million over the past two years, he remained atop the Top 50 list with $75 million over the past 12 months to outpace NBA star Kobe Bryant, the runner-up at $53 million.
The list considers not only player salaries but all endorsement and sponsor income, with Woods having become the first career $1 billion sports pitchman before his epic fall from grace when a sordid sex scandal was revealed in 2009. Woods lost such sponsors as Accenture, AT&T, Gillette and PepsiCo but retained Nike and EA Sports, who together bring more than half of Woods’ income over the 12-month period ending May 1. The golf videogame bearing his name was a big seller this year as it was the first of its kind to feature Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters. Woods was the catalyst for a Nike Golf division that had sales of $638 million last year while the 14th edition of the Woods videogame had record first-week sales of 225,000 units.
The drop by Woods and lack of a fight by boxer Floyd Mayweather, last year’s No. 2 on the list with $65 million, led a drop of 11 percent by the combined list to a total income of $1.4 billion. Another factor was an NFL lockout that kept new deals from being signed last March and April for American football star free agents. Tom Brady of the New England Patriots led three gridiron stars on the 2011 list at $31 million.
Tiger’s winning streak or lack thereof has much less to do with income than his image and sex appeal. That goes for most athletes, especially the women. Does Anna Kournikova ring a bell?? The ball was hardly the only thing bouncing around on the tennis court when she was playing.