Gatorade announced that it is dropping Tiger Woods as a sponsor. On the surface, it looks as thought they weren’t terribly impressed with the mea culpa. Gillette hasn’t dropped him officially, but has suspended all Tiger advertising, calling him a “distraction.” I think what that means it that P&G’s lawyers and Tiger’s lawyers haven’t yet worked out an amenable buyout.
By my count (I’m probably forgetting something), that leaves Tiger with just two high profile deals: Nike and Electronic Arts, makers of the Tiger Woods video game. Nike is in too deep to get out. I predict that EA will drop him in the next year in favor of a general PGA Tour game, with several top young guns as the hook. Picture a box with Kim, Villegas, and several other under 30 “hip” players smiling out at you. They could sign the whole lot for less than they pay Woods.
I always thought that the Woods Gatorade was an exercise in creepiness anyway. The advertising bragged that they had analyzed Woods’ sweat and come up with a chemical substitute. So, in essence, you were drinking Woods’ sweat—however much flavor they added. I often joked that the only person who should be tasting Woody’s sweat was Elin. But knowing what we know now …
Hey! Maybe he could sign a deal with PETA. Their Too Much Sex Can Be A Bad Thing For Little Tigers Too non-campaign certainly was a hit.
Discover more from GolfBlogger Golf Blog
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
The EA thing confuses me. A significant percentage of videogames are purchased by parents. Parents also oversee the purchase even when made by youngsters. It would seem that there is some percentage of video games which would take a hit because of this. I know I am not sure if I will be getting Tiger 2011 this summer. (what if he is not around to do any promos).
But I have a theory on EA. I think perhaps EA did go to the PGA to indicate that it was going to elevate the PGA, and elminiate the Tiger from the box, and Finchem may have put the brakes on that.
I do have to say I was confused by the Tigerade thing. At the same time Gatorade was releasing the Tiger thing, they were barely into the G2 thing, and they had Gatorade Rain coming out too. They went from 4 flavors of Original Gatorade to like 15 flavors and 3 more brands in two years. The only place I ever even saw the Tiger stuff was in Costco. Never in stores, and not even at a golf course.
I am not sure how Gatoraide dropping TW is news. This decision was made in November before he tried to drive his Escillade through a tree.
EA isn’t dropping TW because he is the only name in golf that non-golfers recognize. 99% of non-golfers couldn’t pick Anthony Kim out of a lineup if their life depended on it.
They had dropped the Tiger product, but not Tiger as a pitchman. Now he’s out entirely, it seems.