According to Forbes, Tiger Woods is the third athlete to be deemed a billionaire. Woods, 46, has amassed $1.7 billion during his 27-year career through a combination of salary, golf winnings and various endorsements. For nearly three decades, he has worked with notable brands including Rolex, Gatorade and TaylorMade.
He signed on with Nike in 1996 and the company remains his one of his biggest sources of revenue. Woods joins the ranks of LeBron James and Michael Jordan, who are the only other athlete billionaires. This comes after news that the golfer turned down an offer from Saudi-sponsored LIV Golf tour.
LIV CEO Greg Norman explained to The Washington Post that Woods would have gotten somewhere in “high nine digits” for the deal. Woods’ fortune can also can be credited to several lucrative ventures. He has his own live events production company, TGR Live. Woods also owns a golf design business, TGR Design and a restaurant called The Woods.
He also has stakes in golf training tool Full Swing, hospitality startup Heard and luxury mini-golf locales PopStroke. Woods is an investor in Nexus Luxury Collection, a group of resorts and clubs. The Root reported in April that Woods, who holds 15 major golf championships, registered to possibly play in the U.S. Open tournament as well as a pro-am competition in Ireland later this summer.
Last year, Woods nearly lost one of his legs in a car accident. Instead of amputation, doctors were able to reconstruct it. However, it left him sidelined for more than a year. In March, Woods was inducted in the World Golf Hall of Fame alongside former PGA commissioner Tim Finchem, three-time U.S. Women’s Open Susie Maxwell Berning and women’s golf pioneer Marion Hollins.
He topped Forbes’ highest-paid athletes list for ten year in a row, with his reign coming to an end in 2012.