

Woods first athlete to earn $1 billion - alexitosrv
http://www.ohio.com/sports/63381677.html

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hughprime
I have nothing against golf as a game, and I've played it a few times myself,
but the idea that there's _this_ much money floating around just in sticking
logos on the shirts of guys who hit balls into holes to persuade other guys to
buy new sticks with which to hit other balls into holes makes me feel like
there's an awful lot of money being wasted.

~~~
DannoHung
Golf is the most popular sport for wealthy people. Ever watch (and not fall
asleep) a golfing event on TV? Advertisements are for ridiculous luxury goods
and asset management services.

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eserorg
Profitability of an advertising franchise = (value-per-impression) x (Number-
of-Impressions)

Online social networking has an extremely low value-per-impression.

Professional golfing has an extremely high value-per-impression.

Which explains why Tiger Woods has generated more in profits than the entire
history of the online social networking business.

~~~
sjh
And Woods alone attracts a not-inconsiderable portion of the audience: TV
ratings for this year's US PGA Championship were around 50% higher than for
the same tournament last year, the principal difference being Woods' absence
in 2008 due to injury.

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ankeshk
Tiger Woods should be lauded. No crazy spending sprees. No expensive divorces.
No being taken advantage of by friends and "business associates." No loss in
risky business ventures.

He not only earned the money. He retained it too.

~~~
evansolomon
Do you actually know any of this other than the divorces part? I have no
evidence that Tiger goes on wild spending sprees or has lost money on bad
investments, but I have no evidence that he hasn't either.

FYI I am about as big a Tiger Woods fan as you'll find and if you made me take
one side of a bet, I'd take yours, but this seems like an odd statement of
fact.

~~~
antidaily
I know his Dubai golf course is tanking. But I'm not sure he's not just
lending his name to it.

~~~
graywh
He designed it.

------
raganwald
I found this amusing and a little thought-provoking:

"Forbes says Tiger Woods has become the first athlete to surpass $1 billion in
career earnings.

"The magazine estimates that golf's top-ranked player crested the plateau when
he earned $10 million for winning the FedEx Cup on Sunday.

"Forbes reported on its Web site on Tuesday that Woods entered 2009 having
earned $895 million since he joined the PGA Tour in 1996. Prize money,
appearance fees, endorsement fees, bonuses and his golf course design business
were calculated to have pushed him over $1 billion.

"The magazine says former NBA great Michael Jordan and former Formula One
driver Michael Schumacher, at $800 million and $700 million, respectively, are
Woods' closest competition in career earnings.

"More golf: Watson takes 2-shot lead"

So we have this stupendous amount of money discussed for four paragraphs, and
then the cliché "And in other news..." is that Watson has taken a two shot
lead somewhere or other. The implication that both datums are of roughly equal
interest to the reader is amusing and makes me curious. Is it a machine that
decides that? Or does a human actually believe that after reading about Tiger
having earned a billion dollars the reader will next want to turn back to the
details of a match instead of thinking more about investments and careers?

~~~
rdouble
It is the sports page. Even if it wasn't, how would a journalist segue from
this to investment and careers?

"In other news, no matter how shrewd you are, you will never achieve a
fraction of Tiger Wood's net worth. But let's talk about 401k plans, anyway."

or maybe

"If you happen to be rich, remember, Tiger Woods got there by playing golf -
you had to spend 20 years trading natural gas futures in Calgary."

There doesn't seem to be a great angle...

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nuweborder
I guess Lebron didnt have his wish come true of becoming the 1st Billion
dollar athlete. But he's got many more years to come. Im sure he will surpass
that number. As it is whatever his new contract is after this season, and
whereever it is, is going to be worth a ridiculous amount. Try the possibility
of a $50 million per year deal with a European team. Not to mention the Nike
deal, the movie being released this year, the management company, a profitable
and public relationship with the greatest rapper on the planet (Jay-Z), and
many more endorsements. Who knows, maybe he'll be the first $2 billion dollar
athlete. He taking a page from the book or "Jordan". Brand yourself, and take
away from the game, more than just championships, and shoes. But a name that
is worth even more.

Its like his friend Jay-Z said, "Im not a businessman, Im A Business, man."

~~~
ssharp
He would be able to make twice as much in salary if he went to Europe but he'd
probably lose more money in the long-run by not playing in the NBA.

I get the feeling that Lebron will be able to leverage the Chinese ties which
a new minority owner of the Cavs has and find a way to tap into the fledgling
basketball market in China. Yao Ming has opened up a gigantic market for the
NBA and someone is going to make a lot of money off of it.

~~~
nuweborder
Good point. That new Cavs Chinese ownership can definately be capitalized on,
and their is a lot of Global money to be made from that deal. They loved him
in China during the 08' Olympics in Beijing. Will be exciting to see what he's
gonna do come next summer. Europe, Stay with the Cavs, NYC, Jersey (Brooklyn),
etc. His options are endless. At one point, I thought the Jersey move was out
because the team was having so much financial trouble with the possible
Brooklyn move. But now with the new Russian ownership, along with his
relationship to part-owner and friend, Jay-Z, that may be a viable option
again.

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jodrellblank
I'm quietly pleased that the world had a billionaire author before a
billionaire sportsperson.

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pxlpshr
Can someone point me in the direction of why this is HN worthy? I'm missing
the connection here.

~~~
mattyb
This way -> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=225879>

~~~
pxlpshr
I'd understand your point if this story was even remotely associated to HN,
technology, or "hacking the system".

~~~
mattyb
From <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>:

 _What to Submit

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters,
or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-
topic._

I personally don't find this terribly interesting, but billionaire athletes
are certainly a new phenomenon.

~~~
pxlpshr
Worm holes, black holes, supernovas, big bang, the million other galaxies
outside of ours — those are phenomenons.

Billionaire athletes (through endorsements) are the result of a sharp rise in
consumer consumption, media saturation, and globalized market place the last
20 years. How is that a phenomenon?

