Well, this feels like it took forever to happen – advertisers are starting to realize that Tiger Woods has become more trouble than he’s worth, and they’ve just begun to back away slowly from his endorsements. First up: Gatorade. On Tuesday, Gatorade announced that the Tiger Woods-branded drink (Gatorade Tiger “Focus”) was going to be “discontinued”. Probably because when people now think “How does Tiger take some refreshment?” the answer that comes to most peoples’ minds is “an assortment of waitresses, party girls and hookers”.
Those looking to replenish their electrolytes with a bottle of Gatorade Tiger Focus are out of luck: Gatorade has announced that it is discontinuing the Tiger-Woods-branded beverage.
Gatorade (a division of PepsiCo Inc.) says that the decision to shelf the drink was made before Woods’ minor car accident and the related tumult of adultery allegations, the Associated Press reports.
As first announced in Beverage Digest Nov. 25, Tiger Focus debuted in March 2008. The drink was “formulated to contain more electrolytes based on factors that affect Woods’ training and competition, including his workout intensity, his hydration strategies as well as duration and hot weather conditions he often faces on the course,” according to Gatorade.com.
Yet sales of the beverage were down 34% in 2009 through October. The 33 year-old golfer’s run-in with a fire hydrant occurred on Nov. 27 — two days after infidelity charges first hit newsstands.
The end of Tiger Focus does not, at press time, mean the end of Woods’ lucrative endorsement deal with the sports drink company. In a Nov. 30 statement, Gatorade said, “We wish Tiger well as he recovers and look forward to seeing him on the course soon…Our partnership with Tiger continues.”
[From Us Weekly]
Gatorade isn’t Tiger’s only problem. Radar (and other outlets) are reporting that any ad or commercial featuring Tiger has been pulled off the air. Tiger has not been seen selling anything or fulfilling his contracts on air since November 29th. Note this, however – Tiger still gets paid. He doesn’t have to give that ad money back. So basically, Tiger gotmillions of dollars to endorse products, and now no one wants to use his endorsements. It’s an interesting scheme:
The fallout from Tiger Woods’ alleged extramarital affairs continues. Marketers have pulled all of the golfer’s ads from prime-time television networks and 19 cable channels, according to a Bloomberg.com report.
According to data from Nielsen Co., the last ad featuring Woods was a 30 second Gillette spot that ran on Nov. 29. Tiger ads were also noticeably absent from commercials on several weekend spots as well.
“Last weekend there wasn’t any advertisement during those games,” Aaron Lewis, a spokesperson at Nielsen, said.
As RadarOnline.com reported, Gatorade has discontinued its Tiger “Focus” Drink. Gatorade released a statement Tuesday saying the move to discontinue its “Tiger Focus” drink had nothing to do with the golfer’s growing scandal and that the decision was made before Tiger’s car crash and allegations of extra marital affairs.
[From Radar]
Yeah, right, none of this has anything to do with the neverending reports of Tiger bangin’ anyone with two legs and a pulse (and even that is probably setting the bar too high). On one side, I kind of have some small, tiny, little bit of sympathy for Tiger – after all, he was hired for all of these commercials and ad campaigns because he is an extraordinary athlete. And yet, his wholesome family image was part of the package deal – he sold that as well. So, I don’t have that much sympathy for him.
Well, colour me shocked! Absolutely shocked! (sarcasm dripping)
Maybe he can get an endorsement for Viagra.
It’s not gona hurt his pockets…. he has more money than we can dream about and he’s still worth BILLION$!
The truth is when all the dust settles it will probably turn out to be a blessing in disguise as he no longer has to live a lie. As to his endorsements, he will loose some and gain some new one’s. Unfortunately, being a dawg is also a marketable quality. He has lost some fans and gained a whole new set amongst the player freternity who now see him as a god for jungling so many women simultaneously. As disgusting as that may be that is the reality of life.
The question of his marriage is a different matter, can his wife stay knowing the whole world knows the reality of her marriage. It was different before, pretending not to know. I know so many women in the same position, whose husbands have had affairs or are having affairs who take the same position, especially when there are kids involved. They put on a brave face and muddle through. It’s a lot more difficult to do that when everyone knows the truth. No one can make the decision for her.
I think the image of ideal and, note, stable, married man has been tarnished for quite a long time even though I don’t get why this is so. After all, Bill Clinton is suddenly treated like a rock star again and he had just as many girlfriends and mistresses in his day. Hillary stayed with Bill for her career. I wonder what Tiger Woods’ wife will do. Hopefully she won’t follow the American trend of ‘standing by her narcissist man’.
In America, the feminist ideal is bandied about but what do high profile American women do? They do the opposite. Why don’t people discuss that discrepancy?
He’s been an arrogant SOB on the golf course for years – I have absolutely no sympathy for him at all. I truly feel sorry for Elin for having to live through this nightmare. Can you imagine how she feels seeing these skanks come out of the woodwork knowing he was banging them at the same time he was banging her…The guy is just another pathetic, selfish loser!!
Wonder how many mom’s will be buying the Wii Tiger Woods PGA game this year – can you imagine opening that on Christmas day.
It appears as though my prediction might be right that his wife is planning on divorcing him and going back to Sweden. Once that happens I do see some of his endorsement deals dropping, since he no longer represents family values. The only one that won’t drop him is Nike.
Awesome – finally, someone is acknowledging that he is a pri@k.
@lilred – ha 🙂 Good one!
He just seemed like such a gentleman – i am still shocked to know that he bangs everything that walks 🙁
My my my….the bigger they are, the harder they fall! No sympathy here; mine is saved for Elin and the CHILDREN who will suffer the most for Tiger’s zipper problem.
He may have already been paid for those ads that are no longer running, but I bet he’s going to lose out on a lot of future ones. Golf is a sport you can play forever, he could have had decades of endorsements in his future.
He will, of course, always have millions and I’m sure once some time has passed companies will want to work with him again, but this has to have hurt his potential earnings.
Not that I feel the LEAST bit sorry for him. Self inflicted disaster.
I know it seems like forever, but this whole unraveling of Tiger’s facade has actually been happening really quickly. It was only twelve days ago that he crashed the car and all the dirt came tumbling out. Twelve days. Not even two weeks, and that’s including a freaking holiday weekend! That is fast.
I agree that his wife will leave and go back to Sweden with the kids.
I also agree that while he’ll lose many endorsements, he will pick up new ones. Look at all of the cheating athletes that thrive financially. It’s still a man’s world. Boo!
I also wonder if, in addition to the infidelity, his endorsements are hurting because of the drug abuse allegations (ambien, painkillers)?? Someone with a drug problem also just doesn’t really fit the image of a superstar athelete.
Tiger Wood’s is not worth Billion’s. He had deals that could amount to 1 billion , if he looses those deals then he could not make in the future 1 billion dollars.
Gatorade is one of his biggest deals, I think is around $250 millions, so he is loosing a lot of money but he is not poor or middle class by any means of the imagination.
beverage disgest 🙂
@lilred:
December 9th, 2009 at 8:51 am
Maybe he can get an endorsement for Viagra.
Or for Ambien! 😀
Good. His actions have consequences and he is now experiencing them. In spades. Wow. My head spins when I think of all that he is going to lose simply because of his ‘zipper problem’.
I can’t feel for him. But I feel deeply for his family.
I heard a very interesting thing on local radio the other day, where the sports show was talking to some American pundit or other, talking about the Myth of Tiger and the diva BS that surrounded him on the course, e.g. deciding to do press behind the 18th instead of the press centre, regardless of other golfers playing on; questions being vetted; interviews only granted when Tiger felt like it etc etc.
The Irish journalist stated that no questions were vetted during the Ryder Cup in 2004, but he did suggest that the reason he’s handling it so badly is that he’d been mollycoddled so much in the past he had no concept of how to deal with adversity or being told “that is a terrible idea, you’re not doing it”.
And that’s what this smacks of, losing contracts due to poor handling of a bad situation. Sponsors will take a punt if you’re not unpredictable -and at the moment he’s a bad risk. He’s basically Carrie Prejean with talent in that regard.
I’m telling you guys, Ambien is gonna come in at the clutch. Lol.
Tiger will be just fine. We all know this. For just as most of us are appalled at his behaviour, the thing is he got those endorsements based on his golf. Once this blows over (just like all of these celeb affairs do)and he starts winning again, the sponsors will forget his “transgressions”. In business the bottom line is making money, and there are still fans of golf who support Tiger and will seperate hispersonal life from what he does out inthe golf field or court or whatever they call it…the greens??
These sponsor type people have to do something to show as “punishment” in order to please the fans who have turned anti-Tiger. Getting rid of a little seasonal gatorade drink amounts to not much of anything on a sponsors end and can give the illusion of pacifying the fans who feel he has no morals.
I don’t think any of his major sponsors will pull the plug on him because in that world, heck in OUR everyday life, someone having an affair is as common as breathing. I doubt they will see this as a reason to cut Cheetah loose.
Let’s face it, the only thing he will lose is “face”…and depending on what you want to believe, Elin already took care of that.
@M~ & Lway : maybe they can combine the two and make a new and improved ViAmbian…It could be marketed as hazy sex that goes on forever.lol
I don’t feel any sympathy for this jerk at all. But I do feel huge sympathy for Elin and their children.
“Tiger still gets paid. He doesn’t have to give that ad money back. So basically, Tiger gotmillions of dollars to endorse products, and now no one wants to use his endorsements. It’s an interesting scheme:”
Not true. I would bet my entire ambien script* that every one of those contracts has a “wholesome image” clause. Smart vendors can demand the money back if his image is associated with scandal, depravity etc…
*full disclosure stmt: I don’t have an ambien script, so back off Tiger!!
That’s too bad. Elin could have made off with more money because she could have requested half of future earnings until the kids reach 18 or finish college. Of course that is if she even divorces him. I have a feeling she will pull a Kobe Bryant (Kobe did the same thing and his wife stayed with him).
I’m sure gazillions of dollars in settlement money will do something magical to ease the wife’s pain.