Tiger Woods’ 2K Video Game Deal Helps Tee Up A Lucrative Retirement From Golf

Tiger Woods scored a fresh win Tuesday from his California hospital bed when he announced a partnership that will bring his likeness to the PGA Tour 2K video game franchise.

The deal for Woods, who has been laid up since his violent car wreck last month, adds to a portfolio that has the golf superstar on track to follow other legends from the sport into a lucrative life off the links.

Woods suffered serious leg and foot injuries in the crash, putting his future as a dominant competitor in question. But that is unlikely to hurt his bank account. While the 45-year-old has won a tremendous amount of prize money, his real financial wins come from his side hustles, which make up more than 90% of the $1.5 billion Forbes estimates he has earned over his 25-year career. Forbes estimated his net worth at $800 million in 2018.

For golf’s greatest players, thriving in retirement is a time-honored tradition, and the deal Woods struck with video game publisher 2K and its newly acquired developer, HB Studios, is one of the many he will be able to mine when he hangs up his clubs.

Woods has endorsement deals with brands like Nike, TaylorMade and Monster Energy and a growing golf course design business, which saw the opening of its first public golf course in Missouri last year. Throw in a content deal with the Discovery-owned streaming service GolfTV, plus a HarperCollins book deal, memorabilia and appearance fees, and Woods has proved he can remain a bankable star even when injuries keep him from teeing off at tournaments. He ranked eighth on Forbes’ most recent list of the world’s highest-paid athletes, with $62.3 million in earnings over the 12 months that ended in June 2020.

Woods has made $121 million in PGA Tour prize money, almost $29 million more than all-time No. 2 Phil Mickelson, but he was likely approaching the end of his career on the tour even before the accident, with the PGA Tour Champions—the senior tour, for golfers 50 and over—lying in wait. Still, history suggests that he has many more years to add to his fortune. Some golf stars of the past have even found retirement to be more lucrative than their playing careers.

Gary Player, the South African Hall of Famer who made his PGA Tour debut in 1957 and played his last tournament in 2009, has designed courses since the early 1980s, with a portfolio of nearly 400 projects across 38 countries, according to his company’s website. Forbes estimated his earnings at $21 million for its 2015 list of the highest-paid retired athletes.

Just behind him on that 2015 list was Greg Norman, the Australian star of the 1980s and 1990s, at $16 million. Course design has been a big part of his retirement career as well, with more than 100 courses completed since he launched the business in 1987, but the entrepreneurial Norman’s company has branched out in numerous directions away from the sport, with the creation of a wine label in 1996, a real estate division in 1997 and a wagyu beef brand in 2005, among other ventures.

Jack Nicklaus, whose record of 18 major championships Woods has been chasing since he turned pro in 1996, oversees a design business that has completed more than 425 courses, with Nicklaus involved in roughly three quarters of those projects. In 2017, Forbes estimated his career earnings at $1.2 billion, adjusted for inflation.

Nicklaus’ attitude is a match for Woods’—“I stopped playing competitive golf, but that was just one part of my business life,” he told Forbes in 2014—but Woods may be able to set his sights even higher. In fact, the only apt comparison may be with Arnold Palmer, who earned $3.6 million in prize money in 52 years as a player and, with the help of a legion of fans known as “Arnie’s Army,” more than $870 million off the course, for an inflation-adjusted total of $1.3 billion. With a thriving licensing business and a successful beverage line, plus an apparel brand, Palmer’s estate has continued to generate at least $25 million each year since his death in 2016. That puts him in the neighborhood of luminaries like Elvis Presley and Dr. Seuss on Forbes’ annual list of the highest-paid dead celebrities.

The financial terms of Woods’ 2K agreement were not disclosed, and his agent did not return a request for comment. However, Woods’ own history suggests the deal could be a significant income stream. In the final year of his last video game deal, with EA Sports in 2013, he collected $9 million from Tiger Woods PGA Tour, according to Forbes’ estimates.

Still, even if video games start to feel like work and a return to the links never materializes, Woods can laze away the rest of his days: His PGA Tour pension is estimated to be worth more than $20 million.