Chapter 682: Chapter 481: The Fall of the Hero (Part One)_2 Chapter 682: Chapter 481: The Fall of the Hero (Part One)_2 Their complete defeat in the sports brand market became inevitable.

Although Zhan Ke was no match for Yu Fei, Nike still held a trump card: Tiger Woods.

While Reebok was promoting The Chosen One IX everywhere, Nike focused on touting Woods as the original The Chosen One.

And last month, after winning the FedEx Cup Championship, Woods won another ten million US Dollars in prize money.

Before this, as a golfer, Woods had already earned 890 million US Dollars, and after this victory, he became the first athlete in human history to earn 900 million through prizes, endorsements, and advertising revenue.

Behind him were Michael Schumacher and Michael Jordan, who had earned 700 million and 800 million as athletes, respectively.

Yu Fei’s off-court investments had made him far more money than what he earned on and off the court as a player, but that amount was unclear; he had not disclosed it, and the outside world could not know the exact number. They only knew that since 2001, Yu Fei had earned about 500 million US Dollars as a player on and off the court.

Nike, insisting on making a point with incomes, gained the upper hand for a while, and was very keen to elevate Woods as the premiere contemporary sports star in the United States during this season troubled by Reebok’s overstretch.

A few days later, the Supersonics defeated the visiting Clippers at home.

A reporter took the initiative to bring up the issue of Woods and his income to Yu Fei.

Yu Fei jokingly asked, “He earned nine hundred million? Good lord, what sport does he play?”

It was like asking if Tyson boxed.

“Frye, are you serious?”

“Of course, I know what Tiger does, and I have great respect for his accomplishments, but what are you trying to say?”

“Do you think an athlete’s status is linked to their career earnings?”

“I’m not sure,” Yu Fei laughed, “I just know there was a great golfer who at forty-six, with a big belly, won another world championship, while on the basketball court, that’s impossible. If you don’t believe me, you can see how number 23 was defeated by me at age forty.”

“Are you saying basketball is a more significant sport than golf?”

“I didn’t say that. What I mean is, basketball is more fun for me. Plus, I do respect Tiger a lot, but I worry about him; he’s gotten too close to number 23. You know, being an enemy of number 23 is dangerous, but being his friend is fatal–Antoine Walker is an example.”

Yu Fei knew from his rookie days that Walker had a close relationship with Jordan.

Walker considered Jordan his mentor, dreaming of Jordan’s status and lifestyle, so he spent lavishly in private just like Jordan did.

However, he seemed not to understand that Jordan is Jordan, and he is himself. Jordan still gets hundreds of millions annually from his Nike dividends, while Walker has no other income besides the hundred million he made from his playing career.

The cost of maintaining that kind of lifestyle meant that last summer, the court ordered his assets to be seized to pay off the gambling debts he owed to casinos.

If Jordan ever fell to that level, Yu Fei would die laughing.

Yu Fei didn’t care much for the random comparisons between him and Woods.

It’s safe to say that Woods was one of the current titans of American sports, but their sports didn’t conflict nor did their sports brands. How could someone selling golf equipment have a conflict with someone selling basketball gear?

The only explanation was that Nike wanted to use Woods to overshadow him.

Yu Fei thought, “Suit yourself. Although Woods has influence beyond his sport, he’s been under Jordan’s influence for a long time, keeping himself completely sealed off from the public, except during competitions; people rarely hear news about him.”

Yu Fei’s comment to the media about Woods and Jordan becoming too close leading to misfortune was also a jab at Woods’s recent car crash scandal and tabloid revelations of an extramarital affair.

But Yu Fei wasn’t mocking Woods’s driving skills; his point was that Comrade Woods is a good person, purely led astray by the bad seed, Dan Zi (Michael Jordan).

Just when Nike started to spin up a campaign accusing Yu Fei of lacking empathy and being sarcastic about someone who had a car accident, a heavy blow struck the Nike sports empire from within the Woods group.

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That day, “US Weekly,” a local Florida tabloid, reported a story from a woman claiming to be Woods’s mistress, and soon after released a voicemail allegedly left by Woods to the woman filled with romantic undertones.

To Nike’s surprise, Woods’s team offered no resistance or denial; they openly admitted, “I have made some mistakes,” apologized to “those who have supported me over the years,” and reiterated requests for everyone to respect his and his family’s privacy.

In the following days, more than a dozen women came forward in various media claiming to have had relations with Woods, who then issued another statement admitting to infidelity and announcing an indefinite break from golf to save his marriage.

This was the Tiger Woods bombshell of the late 2000s.

For the sports world, it was the biggest sports scandal of the 2000s, surpassing the Tim Donaghy scandal, the Eagle County incident, Barry Bonds admitting to steroids, Michael Vick’s involvement in dogfighting, and Andre Agassi confessing that fear of his wig falling off cost him Wimbledon… To become a national hero in a relatively niche dominant sport, one must achieve peerless success, and Woods did just that. Nike built him up as the Jordan of golf, following the Jordan template.