sport news Tiger Woods 'received DEATH THREATS' after inking first $40m Nike deal, former ... trends now
Tiger Woods received death threats after signing his first contract with Nike in 1996, a former company executive has revealed.
Woods inked a $40million, five-year deal when he was just 20 years old in 1996 - the first of an iconic 27-year partnership.
The sportwear giant signaled the prodigy's arrival on the professional golfing stage with the now-infamous 'Hello World' advertisement, created by Jim Riswold, the creative director of Nike's ad agency, Wieden & Kennedy.
The 'Hello World' script, which included a line that read, 'There are still courses in the US I am not allowed to play. Because of the color of my skin,' aired on CBS and ESPN and ended with the question, 'Are you ready for me?'
However, it appears not all of the golfing world was in fact ready to witness one of the greatest to play the game.
Tiger Woods reportedly received death threats after signing his first contract with Nike in 1996
Woods, 48, confirmed in January his partnership with the sportswear giant had come to an end
Rod Tallman, Nike's marketing chief at the time, has claimed that both Woods and the company received severe backlash to the deal.
'The golf world that had just started to bring us into the fold turned on us,' Tallman told The Times.
'We got death threats in our offices. Jim Riswold got them. Tiger certainly did, I know that for a fact, but of course he was used to that.'
Tallman suggested there were two factors behind the reaction, one being racial discrimination.
It took until 1975 before a black player was invited to play The Masters and Tallman claimed that
