FinancialYoung Blog

Sorry Tiger, You Got Beat. But You Still Make Me Laugh
August 18, 2009

(I worte this article on 8-13, before the ending of the recent PGA Championship).  You’re probably wondering how on earth did anyone ever beat Tiger Woods, at anything?  Well it’s true, Tiger has been defeated by one person in the race to accumulate $1 Billion in career earnings by a sporting athlete.  It has been projected for a few years now that Tiger would be the first athlete to accumulate that unthinkable sum of income, however, there stands one man in the way of his title and that man is the one and only Michael Schumacher.  Now before you go to Wikipedia and look him up, like I had to do, I’ll tell you that he earned his billion dollar fortune from race car driving, mostly in Europe.  Not to take away from the fact that Schumacher is no slouch in the earning department, but he has benefited largely from the increasing value in the Euro currency over the past couple years and has been a professional for a few more years than Tiger has (5 more years).  Having said all that, what does one do with a billion dollars?  My guess is that you would give almost half of it to the government in taxes, 10% to your agents and in Tigers case another 10% to his caddy Steve-O.  You would have to set aside at least 20% to your wife and the remainder is for you.  I’m sure the feeling of defeat hurts Tiger’s feelings, until he remembers that he is only a few paychecks away from also reaching the Billion dollar threshold.  As Bill Murray best put it in the movie Caddyshack; “He has that going for him, which is nice.”