It was somewhere early in the afternoon of what felt like the longest Masters Sunday in history when I noticed and blogged about the dominance of Nike staff players on the leaderboard.
Now, during the Masters post-mortem (which doesn't actually seem as long as that interminable final round), the numbers are in.
Who won The Masters?
Stewart Cink? Nope.
Tiger (and his left knee)? Nope.
Trevor Immelman? Nope. (Got you there, didn't I?)
The truth is that the above trio's trifecta – a combined 1, 2, and T-3 finish – brought home the victory for Nike.
Numbers just released by the sponsorship evaluation company Joyce Julius & Associates reveal that Nike and its golf brands "appeared for approximately one-fifth of the entire broadcast, leading to nearly $25 million of in-broadcast exposure value."
Let's break that down by player:
Nike logos on Immelman were shown for 31 minutes and 18 seconds in Sunday's telecast, which is the equivalent of $14.7 million advertising time, according to the firm. Woods garnered 12 minutes and 57 seconds, or $6.09 million in ad value. (Numbers were not given for Cink.)
Winner Immelman was wearing two Nike logos on his hat and a Nike logo on his shirt pocket. Even his boisterous young his young son Jacob was wearing a pair of Nike shoes.
One is left to wonder inappropriately where Immelman's lovely wife was wearing her Swoosh…
Lascivious conjecture aside, it is quite clear that money spent on Tour Player sponsorships can pay off big time, as long as the players you choose end up at the final round of a major. And while Masters viewers will be misremembering Immelman's name within a month, Nike is banking on them recalling what sort of apparel and equipment he was playing (at least via subconscious association).
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