Even Tiger Woods could not make golf profitable, says co-founder of Nike

Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike, was so enamoured with a young Tiger Woods that the company began recruiting him three years before signing him to an endorsement deal at 20.

“You could see him coming from way back,” Knight said in an interview on Bloomberg Television that airs on Wednesday at 9 pm EDT (9 am HK time). The young golfer would occasionally play in the Portland area, near Nike’s headquarters, “and we’d always invite him and his father out to lunch.”

It was the start of a long and ultimately unprofitable relationship.

Woods went on to become the greatest golfer of his generation, and Nike sought to benefit by selling clubs and equipment. But even the celebrity of Woods and his legion of fans weren’t enough to make it break even, said Knight, who left the company’s board last year. Nike exited the category a year ago amid Woods’s fading star power and the sport’s declining popularity.

“It’s a fairly simple equation, that we lost money for 20 years on equipment and balls,” Knight said. “We realised next year wasn’t going to be any different.”