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Tracked.Com Topics: Did You Hear The One About Tiger Woods?

I’m sure at this point, mostly everyone — whether you like it or not — has heard about Tiger Woods, his suspicious car accident and his alleged extra-marital affairs fall-out.  Unlike Time Warner’s Sports Illustrated, CNN and People brands, however, I’m not going to dwell on his personal life and sensationalize activities he participates in that do NOT pay his bills.

I’m going to talk about sponsorship.  Tiger Woods is the proverbial “Cash Cow” to many brands and corporations, with Nike, Accenture, Gillette, PepsiCo and the PGA Tour just to name a few.  Just how are these sensationalistic stories affecting his brand name?  According to one article, the last we saw Woods in any advertisement was “was a 30-second spot for Gillette on November 29, two days after the Florida car crash.”

Earlier this week, Gatorade (owned by PepsiCo) announced it was discontinuing it’s “Tiger Focus” drink.  Gatorade said that this decision was due to “low sales,” this was decided “months ago,” and had nothing to do with his recent media coverage.  Call me crazy but if this was determined months ago, why is this news coming out now, when everyone is wondering if  it is the time to back out of any Tiger Woods-endorsed products?  (Bear in mind PepsiCo also famously paid Madonna after breaking their contract and having her not hawk their product after she released a controversial video in the late-1980s, and a similar story with R&B artist Ludacris in the early-2000s).

Adweek did a study where they discussed adjectives to describe Tiger Woods and his public perceptions.  In a week, descriptors changed from “great, good and best” to “voicemail, mistress and affair,” nowhere mentioning a car accident where he was injured.

Even the PGA Tour website was in on the act this week.  A site redesign left Woods’ image nowhere to be seen.  According to an executive,  the website undergoes changes and is not static.  Tiger Woods, easily one of the most recognizable names in sports let alone golf, cannot be found on the site.  Again, merely a “coincidence,” according to the PR people who run the site.

Tiger Woods’ has a contract in place with Nike and Gillette, two of the many sponsors  publicly supporting him throughout his ordeal.   According to an article entitled “Goodwill Crashing,” estimates of his true value are “between $2.50 and $4 for every dollar spent on endorsements. This would mean in Tiger’s case that all 10 companies could expect a combined $420 million in annual revenues from their association with the golfing great. For most, including Nike, it’s a drop in the bucket.“  Even if dropped, Tiger Woods would not be hurting financially, but it is a mathematical certainty that what puts on food on the table for him is partially his pro golfing career…it’s also the endorsements, silly!

Prior to the suspicious car accident on his front lawn in early morning hours and now salacious affairs coming out of the woodwork, Tiger Woods was an immensely introspective public figure who valued his privacy more than anything, even naming his yacht after that abstract ideal.  What he seems to not have grasped is that the media LOVES guys like him: guys who have a sudden fall from grace in an effort to simply sell newspapers, get web clicks and who can outscoop who with the next story to shock-shock-shock.

Is Tiger Woods still valuable?  Heck yes — to the newspapers reporting on this!  Visit the Tiger Woods page on Tracked.com and see just how many articles have come up in the past month on Tiger, and let me give you a hint, most of them weren’t about sports.

It’s up to his sponsors who stick by him in the end.  History has told us that although the media tends to build people up to ultimately tear them down (Britney Spears, Madonna and Kobe Bryant come to mind as recent figures), Tiger Woods will be the phoenix to rise from the ashes of this debacle.  He’s not going anywhere as long as he has his talent.  In the meantime though, gossip columns are thriving on him.