All Told, Jordan Spieth Will Have Made More Than 50 Million Dollars In 2015
Golf Digest- Could 22-year-old Jordan Spieth be the biggest money-maker in all of golf? Yup. And if not, he’s damn close, which also makes him one of the most lucrative cash machines in all of sports, and among the richest in all of entertainment. Oh, like in the neighborhood of more than $50 million this year alone. Forbes says the highest-paid actor this year was Robert Downey Jr. at $80 million. By winning the Tour Championship on Sunday, Spieth finished the 2015 PGA Tour season with $12,030,465 in official money. Throw in unofficial money he won this season and the total is $13,030,465. Now, the icing on that financial cake is the $10 million FedEx Cup bonus, which gives Spieth $23,030,465 won on the golf course, eclipsing the record $22,902,707 won by Tiger Woods in 2007 when he amassed $122.7 million in total earnings in the Golf Digest 50 annual ranking of all-encompassing earnings. Spieth signed a 10-year deal with Under Armour earlier this year and also has endorsement relationships with AT&T, Titleist, Perfect Sense, Rolex, NetJets and Super Strokes. Those deals plus overseas appearance money put Spieth easily past $50 million this year.
Hey are you ready to feel even worse about yourself on a Monday morning? K good. Because a 22-year-old kid is set to make 50 million dollars this year playing golf and having endorsement money pour into his pockets. 50 million dollars. That’s an unfathomable amount of money. That’s an unfathomable amount of anything really. He could hang ‘em right now and be set for life. And that’s the crazy part. The guy is 22 years old and is basically just getting started. 2013 we learned his name when he won the John Deere Classic for his first PGA win. 2014 we saw him battle Bubba Watson at the Masters but eventually lose. We also saw him player in the Ryder Cup that year. Then he EXPLODED in 2015. He had one of the best seasons in golf history (it was the best season in golf history in terms earnings). Let’s do a quick review here:
– #1 player in the world
– 5 PGA wins
– 2 major championship wins (and if a few breaks go his way this number easily could’ve been 3 or even 4)
– $12,030,465 on-course earnings (that number jumps up by another $10 million when you factor in the FedEx Cup)
– And I don’t even know how much he made from endorsements but it’s gotta be a fuck ton. He’s (along with Steph Curry I suppose) Under Armour’s poster boy. That’ll fatten up the wallet real quick. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
I don’t know how Spieth is gonna top his 2015. I really don’t. That’s not to say he’s peaked by any means. It’s just that those accomplishments are a dream season no matter how you slice it. He’s barely 22! I still can’t wrap my head around that fact. And Spieth didn’t do it against scrubs. All of that came in a year where we saw a new generation of golfers rise up and take center stage. A changing of the guard. #1 in the world changed hands every 6 minutes. A year that saw the emergence of guys like Rickie Fowler and Jason Day (and Rory to a much lesser degree than we’d hoped after his break out 2014 buy he’s still Rory McIlroy). It was the Rory Era then the Spieth Era then the Fowler Era then the Day Era and back to the Spieth Era all in one calendar year. Golf is chock full of young talent and Spieth is leading the way. It’s unthinkable. I know Tiger is still a huge draw and TV ratings probably aren’t where they were when Tiger was at his peak but golf couldn’t be in a better place in terms of young talent. The battle like the one we saw between Spieth and Day at the PGA Championship is what golf fans can expect from this generation for hopefully years to come and that’s fucking exciting. And hey, if Spieth wants to toss some of that 50 mil at a lowly smut blogger I’d be okay with that. Hell of a season out of Jordan Spieth. Enjoy it young fella.
PS- I nailed this tweet back in May 2014. If athlete stock were a real thing and I’d bought stock in Spieth I’d have a lot of money right now.
Double PS- With all due respect to Jason Day and his accomplishments, I’m gonna go ahead and say Jordan Spieth is Player of the Year.