What Has Been Tiger Woods' True Impact on Golf Sponsorship?

Before last Thanksgiving, Tiger Woods was living his life as he saw fit - cheating behind his wife and childrens' backs, living a double life, and God knows what else. Until both The National Enquirer and Jaimee Grubbs decided to target him, Woods' off-course activities were mostly unsubstantiated whispers in certain circles. Those whispers usually didn't leave Orlando or Vegas.

But when the world became aware of his philandering ways, Tiger Woods immediately lost significant endorsements. AT&T didn't need Tiger as a poster child for texting. The best a man can get? Not a Perkins waitress, according to Gillette. Tiger was no longer G enough. Maybe R.

Easy puns aside, just about a year removed from the beginning of the mess Tiger's life spiraled into these last ten months, what impact has Woods had on the endorsement market?

Sports Business Journal looked at the entire marketplace this week (verdict: more athletes, less money) but also spent significant ink on Tiger, the self-inflicted impact, and the reach of his actions to the pockets of the PGA Tour.

First, Mark Steinberg weighs in on what the scandal has done for Tiger's own opportunities to be a pitchman. (RIP Billy Mays.)

"There is still demand, for sure," Steinberg said. "I’m not sure we’ve had the right offers yet. But I’d say the time is right where I’d start to look at expanding his portfolio."

"Right offers" probably do not include offers from gambling sites and AshleyMadison.com, a site promoting arranged extramarital affairs. But there may be some other less racy offers on the table.

As for the impact his affairs have had on his athletic peers, brands are obviously now more cautious about contracts and language protecting themselves in the event of such morally hazardous revelations. Then again, Ray Lewis is sponsored by Old Spice, so that can be thrown out the window like the Raven he rides on to shoot lasers into Saturn. There also is little deference paid to Kobe Bryant's personal issues, which certainly were worse than those Woods faces.

On a broader level, the biz doesn't appear sure what impact Woods' downward spiral had on Tour sponsorships. Then again, it's hard to even say accurately what Woods' impact has been in the prior fourteen years on Tour. It ranges from labeling Tiger as the only face worth endorsing on Tour (untrue, ignorant opinion) to modest impact. In truth, Woods' presence and dynamism created more opportunities for golf at large, but he was not the sole reason golf experienced a boom that just happened to coincide with the greatest American economic expansion since World War II.

Since 1996, Tiger's rookie season, until the latter portion of the last decade, people were getting richer. The technical recession under George HW Bush had already thawed by the time Bill Clinton took the Presidency in early '93. By the elections in '96, everyone was winning. Save for a very brief reactionary recession to 9/11, the economy continued to explode. (Sure, a lot of it was paper worth, but contracts are signed on papyrus.)

Woods' surge to the top of golf and the sporting consciousness just happened to coincide with an even more compelling American economy. The companies that love rich people - financials, autos, etc. - were in golf already. They just had a bigger audience now because of the combined interest Americans had in golf's 21st century superhero and spending obscene amounts of fake wealth. The PGA Tour stood to benefit.

(If this were a book, I would delve in chapter upon chapter of macroeconomic and PGA Tour analysis in some kind of interwoven, highly engrossing narrative. But, this is a blog, so we'll leave it here.)

With the economy now struggling to move forward in a tangible growth of true individual wealth and jobs and coupled with Tiger facing his worst season on Tour, the folks selling sponsorships have some serious challenges. Like Tiger, though, they are better off than they were ten months ago.