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The director of a popular NIL platform believes that 13-year-old Charlie Woods will be raking in millions of dollars in 2023 when he becomes a high school freshman.
Speaking Sportico, Sam Weber, the senior director of communications at Opendorse, an NIL platform, said about Woods, “Charlie is in rare air, just from name recognition alone. He’s similar to Arch Manning, Bronny James and even Shaquille O’Neal’s sons in that way.”
Except their dads haven’t made approximately $1.7 billion in their professional sports careers.
This 13-year-old, however, will have something his famous dad never had access to as a teen sports prodigy: NIL money.
Charlie Woods will be entering high school as a freshman in the fall of 2023. That means, according to Weber, “he’s probably looking at seven figures as soon as he’s eligible.”
Right now, 20 year-old LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne currently has an NIL valuation of $2.6 million and she is the highest paid female athlete in college and high school. She trails only high school basketball players Bronny James ($7.5 million) and Mikey Williams ($3.6 million), high school quarterback Arch Manning ($3.5 million), and two college quarterbacks, Bryce Young ($3.5 million) and Caleb Williams ($3.2 million), on the overall list of highest NIL earners.
Weber says it “would be surprising if the brands that have been prominent in Tiger’s career would not want to join the fold. You can almost see the Nike commercial with the two of them.”
There’s just one problem, according to Sportico: Florida law prohibits high school athletes from taking NIL money.
…though this may be less of an obstacle than it first appears. The law could change or Charlie could forego high-school golf and simply play on one or more of the junior golf circuits available. He’s even eligible to qualify for the U.S. Junior (which Pops won thrice).
Then there are those who suggest everyone cool their jets, maybe Charlie Woods doesn’t want to be a professional golfer.
As Sportico points out, Padraig Harrington recently told Golf Digest, “It doesn’t really matter how good you are at 11, 12, 13 years of age. It’s how much he loves the game when he’s 22 years of age. … It’s fascinating to watch now, but it will come down to how much he really loves the game for how successful he is.”
Who said anything about being successful? Charlie Woods could literally stop playing golf after high school, take his tens of millions in NIL money, add it to the $1.7 BILLION his dad has and do whatever his heart desires for the rest of his life.