Fortune Finally Does Math And Declares Forbes Tiger Endorsement Numbers Stink!

You may recall back on June 3rd after Forbes released its annual listing of top athlete income at $75 million, I questioned the math based on reports from IMG that the agency income from Tiger Woods endorsement deals had fallen to just over $1 million.

Well Daniel Roberts at Fortune has an IMG source talking and voila, he says the Forbes number was wildly inflated and Tiger's current endorsement haul is more like $20 million annually post-accident.

IMG declined to comment on the details of Steinberg's departure, or on Tiger Woods, but a trusted Fortune source with reliable information tells us that IMG was none too broken up about losing Woods, because his endorsement earnings have fallen so dramatically. The source says IMG's commissions for 2011 -- they'll continue to get a chunk of Tiger's endorsement deals through 2013 -- will be as low as $1.5 million.

Besides the companies that dropped Woods, he may have a renegotiated deal with Nike.

But our source also tells us that Tiger's Nike money fell by as much as 50% in 2010 (to about $10 million, down from $20 million in 2009) and that he will get the same reduced amount for 2011. The reason? Nike penalized him for his indiscretions, reducing his payment for two years as a response to his public behavior. Nike had no comment.

This is a bizarre quote from Steiny...

Woods' agent adamantly denies the assertion that the golfer is facing financial strain. "Tiger Woods is financially sound and strong, contrary to wide-ranging rumors and inaccurate figures in the media," Steinberg wrote in an email. "Stating anything else is incorrect and factually baseless."

The only inaccurate numbers I've seen are wildly inflated, not suggesting he was in the poorhouse.

Steinberg was also called out by Roberts regarding the mortgage Tiger took out on his Jupiter home:

Mark Steinberg says simply that there is no debt on Woods' Jupiter Island home, and declined to elaborate. But the Martin County clerk's office confirmed that their records show that the mortgage has not been paid off.