International Mankini Challenge

Is Tiger Woods better off without his sponsors?

by malph on Dec.15, 2009, under Other Mankini News

So this has nothing to do with the International Mankini Challenge, but more with the funny things you see when you´re travelling – so please bear with me.

As you´ll all no doubt have seen, a lot has been written in recent weeks about Tiger Woods and his infidelity. Most recently, and following his announcement that he is to take an indefinite break from playing golf, attention has been focussed on his sponsors and whether they will continue to support him. With a reported $100m of Tiger´s income coming from sponsor endorsements and ‘only’ $23m coming from golf tournaments, their decisions are important ones to the world´s number one golfer as he looks to repair his public image and to a far lesser extent, maintain his income while out of professional competition.

This focus has sharpened in the last week with the news that Gatorade is to drop a Tiger Woods-endorsed product (though they say the decision to do this was prior to recent events), Gillette are to limit his role and Accenture are to drop him altogether.

It´s not all doom and gloom for Tiger though as sponsors including Nike, Tag Heuer, TLC Vision, Electronic Arts and Netjets have publically stated they´ll continue their sponsorship of Tiger. Although in saying that, while Tiger currently seems to be enjoying support from the majority of his backers, US media figures show `the last prime-time advert featuring the 33-year-old golfer was a 30-second Gillette item on 29 November´.

So while the majority are backing Tiger Woods verbally, sponsors don´t necessarily seem to be following that up in the way they’re using him publicly. However having seen this Accenture billboard advert in San Francisco airport on December 4th, he may well be better off without their backing at all!

If you can´t read the strapline at the bottom it says “We know what it takes to be a Tiger. Talk to us to see how we can help.” Obviously this offer isn´t now open to Tiger himself. Indeed if Tiger is to follow Accenture´s example, running away may seem the best option. And so I would beg to differ with Rick Burton, a professor of sports management at Syracuse University, who told the Associated Press “(Accenture) had tied everything in their campaign to Tiger Woods. If he’s not golfing, those ads don’t make sense.” I don´t know about you, but it seems to make sense to me!

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