When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
Two excellent suggestions from Bob Harig to cure what ails the season opening SBS Championship at Kapalua:
I've been astounded by a lot of things over the last month. But the ability of Vanity Fair to generate so much buzz over some photos locked in a drawer and accompanied by a revelation-free story in a magazine usually so rich with detail? Check out these headlines procured from a Google search for the article about nothing:
"Tiger Woods shown shirtless, pumping iron"
"Tiger Woods gets the Annie Leibovitz treatment for Vanity Fair"
"Tiger Woods strips for Vanity Fair photo shoot"
Vanity Fair' on Tiger Woods: 'A sex addict who could not get enough'
Vanity Fair: Tiger Woods Paid Big Money For Sex, Goes Topless for Cover
As for the date of that cover photo, Annie Leibovitz herself isn't saying (yet) but she chimes in with this reminder why she should to stick to taking photos: “Tiger is an intensely competitive athlete—and quite serious about his sport. I wanted to reveal that in these photos. And to show his incredible focus and dedication.”
Steve Elling is having trouble understanding how Conde Nast's Vanity Fair is sensationalizing Tiger as Conde Nast's Golf Digest puts him on a sabbatical:
Then there's the completely reverse philosophy espoused by Vanity Fair, which, rather unbelievably, is also a Conde Nast publication. The latter features Woods on the cover of its latest edition, sans shirt and doing biceps curls, and includes a feature story that seemingly was written in 15 minutes by a guy with no apparent knowledge of the PGA Tour. So while one Conde Nast mag was skirting the Woods situation entirely -- he has a seven-figure contract to pen the tutorial pieces for Digest -- another was exploiting his situation to sell magazines. How consistent, huh? Maybe Woods can pen an instructional piece when he gets back called, "The left hand should know what the right hand is doing." Good picture, though.
Elling also touches on the tour's decision to remove Tiger as host of the AT&T National event and notes this discrepancy.
When asked how that differs from two years ago, when Woods was on the shelf after having knee surgery and skipped attending the event entirely, the tour declined to elaborate further. ... Add it all up and the impression is clear: AT&T, a huge player in the tour's sponsorship pantheon, wanted to sever its ties to Woods across the board.
And don't miss his final "Up and Down" item on Tiger mistress Ashley Samson talking to the New York Daily News.
Gawker features this follow-up video of Brit Hume appearing on The O'Reilly Factor to clarify his remarks and not really doing a very good job convincing the Buddhists of the world that he thinks very highly of their philosophy. From the interview:
He needs something that Christianity especially provides and gives and offers, and that is redemption and forgiveness. I was really meaning to say in those comments yesterday more about Christianity than anything else…I think that Jesus Christ offers Tiger Woods something that Tiger Woods badly needs.
You mean a blood platelet spinning doctor south of the Canadian border?
The New York Daily News' Nancy Dillon reports that Buddhists were not happy with Hume's homily.
"Could Hume get away with saying something like this about Jewish people or black people or the Muslim Faith?" asks Kyle Lovett on TheReformedBuddhist.com.
"You betcha he couldn't," Lovett continues. "Why should he be able to skate away scott free when speaking about Buddhists? Because we are only 3 or 4% of the population of the US? Hell No! Sometimes we have to speak up."
Adam Satariano says that EA Sports is sticking with Tiger and keeping his name on their games.
“Regardless of what’s happening in his personal life, and regardless of his decision to take a personal leave from the sport, Tiger Woods is still one of the greatest athletes in history,” Peter Moore, president of EA Sports, said in a statement today.
Titles featuring Woods have generated $675 million in U.S. sales since 1998 for Electronic Arts, the second-largest video game company, according to researcher NPD Group Inc. “Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online,” to be released this month, is the first in the series that can be played through a Web browser. The game is part of Chief Executive Officer John Riccitiello’s strategy to expand sales of non-console titles.
Dave Shedloski reports on the reduced PGA Tour Media Guide (no more photos of all VP's, no wonder it's 100 pages shorter). He also says a certain somebody is still on the cover.
Jon Show looks at the PGA Tour's "inventory" issues and notes this from a consultant close to a couple of key sponsors:
Despite the developments surrounding the sport’s biggest star, agency executives do not expect the controversy to have a short-term effect on sponsorship sales.
“You should pay what you’re going to pay for your title sponsorship regardless of Tiger,” said Sarah Hirshland, senior vice president of consulting at Wasserman Media Group, which works with tour title sponsors Northern Trust and Travelers. “You can’t make a decision based on one guy that you can’t control where he’s going to play.”
They're saying Tiger's visit to Australia generated $31 million in revenues and tourist dollars. Boy, those National Enquirer expense accounts must be generous.
And finally, add Africa and South Africa to the list of places Tiger may be hiding.
Larry Dorman makes that point in reviewing the year and decade. And it's a good point to remember since now every time the PGA Tour loses a sponsor Tiger will be blamed. In this economy, that's pretty ridiculous even though his potentially diminished appeal will surely sway some companies.
Though I do think New Year's Eve is kind of your basic Friday afternoon no matter what day it falls on.
Some good news in the announcement: they are not dropping their sponsorship of Tiger's PGA Tour stop. Oh, and they wish Tiger well.
**CNBC's Darren Rovell, who is often agent Mark Steinberg's first stop for revealing Tiger business news, paints a bleak future for the Tiger Woods Foundation's future now that AT&T is not renewing its deal to sponsor "Tiger Jam." He also suggests that while Nike is likely to pick up Tiger's bag sponsorship, Chevron could be the next corporation to pull out of its Woods related deals.
If there's a natural next sponsor to go, it's likely Chevron, which is in a similar situation in terms of having a less visible role with Woods, but a more active role with the foundation. It's clear that the foundation, which has done a tremendous job in raising money over the last decade, won't do as well in the near future.
The surprisingly chipper talk of Tiger coming back unblemished meant this exchange from the SI Confidential went unnoticed:
Anonymous Pro: The thing that we thought would drive the Tour was the World Golf Championships. If anything, those events are killing the other tournaments. Why? The WGC tournaments draw top players away from regular Tour events, which we need now more than ever.
Bamberger: The Tour basically oversold Tiger, and in the end it's an uphill slog when he doesn't appear. The Tour's long tradition is about local events and local charities. They tried to join the big leagues and were somewhat successful but found that golf is still a niche sport, although it can break out from time to time. The WGC events haven't connected with anyone and at the same time have ruined the real heart of the Tour, stops like L.A. or Hartford or Colonial that are now unfairly perceived as second-rate.
Anonymous Pro: Tiger and Phil wanted the season to end sooner. They weren't playing after mid-August, sometimes not even in the season-ending Tour Championship. Now that the FedEx Cup concludes the season in September, they're taking advantage of the downtime they asked for by playing overseas for big appearance fees. Didn't Finchem know that was going to happen? I'm not blaming Tiger or Phil. I'd play in a dress for $3 million. It is the Tour's fault for allowing it, and it really rubs me the wrong way. This is the biggest bogey Finchem has ever made.
Short term I think it's terribly wrong to call the WGC concept a bogey. But in the post-Tiger accident and Great Recession economy, long term the events appear to bring as many complications as solutions.
I'm guessing that hard questions internally about the value of WGC events will be forbidden as long as Finchem is commissioner. But the combination of increased animosity outside of the U.S. toward the America-centric concept and the inability of stops like San Diego to draw sponsor interest, could mean 2010 will lead to a closer examination of the World Golf Championship concept. Long overdue.
Not to sound like Tim Finchem...but there are so many more elements to golf tournament sponsorship than just Tiger Woods. The LA Times' Dan Neil--an incredible auto reviewer and Pulitzer winner--reinforces the that lack of sponsorship understanding in a point-misser piece suggesting Tiger's phony image means all of pro golf is a charade unworthy of corporate support.
Without Woods, the game trails off and rolls back into the weeds of cultural irrelevance, long weekend tourneys among more or less evenly matched men in more or less equally ugly clothes slapping balls around while the real players get loaded in corporate hospitality tents. There is no heroism in golf without Tiger -- at least the Tiger we thought we knew -- no drama, and scant male pulchritude besides. Unless your business is actual golf balls or clubs (Titleist or Ping or whatever), I'd say your marketing dollars could be best spent elsewhere.And, of course, as a practical matter, there will be far fewer eyeballs watching golf on TV. Various estimates have the viewing audience sans Tiger dropping by 50%. Who knows if they'll ever come back.
The illusion that professional golf was somehow a sport with a higher calling, a game of honor and ethics played by fundamentally decent men, has been shattered. This isn't about counting strokes you took while nobody's watching. Tiger's trollop-taking is precisely the sort of thing we've come to expect from pro basketball and football players -- and, shamefully, our indifference implies consent. For the most dominant golfer of all time to be so caddish seems to be a signal that lesser golfers transgress in lesser degrees. In any event, the safe harbor of golf's presumed decency has been drained. Meanwhile, now that the tabloid press has had a taste for golfer flesh, I wouldn't be surprised if we have to live through a season of golf-related exposes. All the more reason for marketers to pull up stakes.
The scribblers didn't give Tim Finchem the best reviews yesterday on his teleconference performance and I must say his tone during the call was different from what was exhibited in his chats on CNBC, ESPN and The Golf Channel.
Maybe he should talk to the scribes on video? Ty, set that up please. Help the big guy out. It's going to be a long year.
Unfortunately we don't have images to see if he rekindled last year's kidnapping video sensibility, but Finchem did apparently talk to his players again via video and was a bit more candid than he was in talking to us lowly writers. Sean Martin reports:
The nine-minute video appeared to have been filmed in the locker room at TPC Sawgrass. It was divided into three segments: "Business Update," "2010 Season," and "Tiger's Absence."
Way to weave those current events in!
In Thursday's press conference, Finchem denied reports that the Tour is having trouble securing sponsorship renewals. However, he said in Friday's video that he will travel to fewer events in 2010 as he focuses on securing those sponsorships.
“In 2010, this economy hasn’t gotten any better,” he said. “We have a lot more renewals for 2011. My focus, my priority is going to be the business of the PGA Tour. You may not see me out there as much.”
He sure knows how to spoil a PGA Tour pro's Christmas.
However, he did say 2010 should be a “very, very solid year” for the Tour. “We have a full schedule. We have playing opportunities that are very close to 2009. We will have prize money about the same, maybe a little higher than 2009. Our charity dollars will be up somewhat.”
Actually, it's down $4 million give or take a few dollars..
“I don’t want to misrepresent the facts. Tiger has a strong impact on the PGA Tour, but we can perform well, and perform adequately for our sponsors in his absence,” Finchem said.
“... But in the meantime, we need to do a little more work. Again, as I mentioned earlier, it’s incumbent on all of us in 2010 to work hard, continue that effort we had in 2009, and roll into 2010 with an upbeat attitude.”
Finchem asked players to continue an increased effort to interact with sponsors.
“As you did in 2009, stepping up and committing yourselves to extra effort for sponsors and tournaments, we want to carry that right into 2010,” he said. “... This helped us a lot in this downturn, and we need to do it again in 2010.”
The opening sketch is brilliant...
Tim Finchem, Geoff Ogilvy among others were hauled into this Woods saga, with a nice Bernie Madoff connection too:
Wanda Sykes also opened her show with a great skit, but because Fox has some weird video player I refused to download. It'll be on YouTube soon, hopefully. If you want to risk downloading their suspicious player, the episode is here.
**The Sykes opening sketch and entire show is now on Hulu:
Tod Leonard recently documented the surprising inability of the Century Club and PGA Tour to find a sponsor for the event formerly known as the Buick Invitational.
Since there is a very good chance Tiger Woods will make his next start at the "Century Club of San Diego Invitational," the sponsorship status of the event may tell us just how much or how little sponsors want to be a part of the Woods brand post-accident. After all we're talking about monster ratings for an event that already drew well and while tickets and schedules have been printed, we know the PGA Tour can move quickly to insert a sponsor last-minute, though we could be inside a window that makes it impossible to sign someone for the late January event.
And this is assuming a major corporation wants to be associated with Tiger Woods.
As for the future, Doug Ferguson addressed the idea of ratings and next year's television contract negotiations:
Neal Pilson, former CBS Sports president who runs his own consulting business, did not think it would affect the next deal.
"We're seeing this in the glare of the day, these incredible revelations," Pilson said. "At some point, he'll play golf and he'll move on. At some point, this will become more embarrassing to the media than Tiger."
TV ratings typically double when Woods is contention, and he has begun his season every year since 2006 at Torrey Pines in San Diego, which starts Jan. 28.
"Ratings will be good for golf. Aren't you going to be watching?" Pilson said. "The ratings for Tiger are going to be higher than they might be ordinarily. I don't think there will be any negative fallout for golf. This is a Tiger Woods story. He happens to be a golfer, but he's a worldwide personality."
I really have no idea why they issued this, who it is on behalf of, or how this accomplishes anything:
Tiger's statement speaks for itself. We offer our full support to Tiger and his family and will continue to honor and respect his request for privacy in this matter. We will have no further comment on Tiger's statement.
**A PGA Tour friend called to make a fair point: if the tour responded to reporters with a "no comment" they would be viewed as abandoning Tiger, creating a new and unfounded news story. I countered that posting the statement on the website was the mistake.
I used to be able to joke about PGA Tour executive pay, but when you see these numbers...
Jon Show of Sports Business Journal did the digging and writes:
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
