Tiger In His Cage?
So another celebrity falls from grace….I will tell you this. I NEVER thought it would be Tiger. So, my ongoing question still applies.
How does this affect his sponsors? Tag Heuer, Gillette, Nike, Accenture all have multi-million dollar sponsorship agreements with him. Do they drop him? What about Cadillac? I am sure they are not happy about their product, Tiger’s Escalade, being featured all over TV in it’s less than pristine shape! Let’s not even get into how much the PGA depends on him to promote their sport. Tiger presence alone accounts for millions upon millions of sponsorship dollars for the Tour as well has PGA licensed merchandise, TV ratings, etc, etc.
So, which is worse, cheating on your wife or smoking dope at a college party (as our good friend Michael Phelps did.)?
Does it matter that Tiger is an exponentially bigger celebrity than Phelps?
Will that factor in to how the sponsors will react?
I say it will. Tiger is way too important to his sponsors, the Tour and the sport of golf as a whole to garner any kind of retribution. Even if a sponsor chooses to terminate their contract with Tiger, there is still a line of companies waiting to give him money.
It will be interesting in the coming days to see how Tiger responds. So far, he is doing well by coming out and admitting “transgressions”. It would only get worse if he kept denying it.
What you do think?