POSTED: January 8th 2010
NewsUpdate
Michael Buckner: Sponsor loyalty to Woods could be lucrative investment
LAURA WALDEN & KEIR RADNEDGE / Sports Features Communications
Second part of the series
TAMPA/LONDON, Jan 08: Television ratings for golf may not collapse as dramatically as has been feared in the wake of the Tiger Woods scandals. Indeed, they may soar precisely because of it once the major tours launch this spring.
That is the view of Florida sports lawyer Michael Buckner.
He says: “The public’s fascination with reality-television, which uses our curiosity in celebrity and scandal, will fuel tremendous interest if and when Tiger comes back to golf. The first tournament (and, especially, the first major) Tiger competes in will have one of the largest ratings for a sporting event during the last few years.
“It will be a spectacle and the public—sports fans and the casual viewer—will tune in at record numbers. This is what makes the decisions of several of Tiger’s sponsors so interesting.”
Nike and Gatorade are two sponsors who have remained loyal to Woods and others may wish they had not pulled away so hastily.
Buckner says: “I predict several of his former sponsors will re-sign Tiger once it is apparent that his endorsing power has not been affected and it is ‘safe’ to do so."
The Nielsen Company reported, before his recent scandals, that if Woods featured in a TV ad sponsors would see a 16pc higher recall of the commercial itself. But when Woods took time off for knee surgery then ratings for the PGA Tour took a hit.
In another Nielsen study when he returned to play last February they found ratings had been down 47pc for the earlier tournaments he had missed.
This impacts all PGA Tour advertisers. So, despite his personal issues, the day Woods steps on to the tee again TV ratings will probably go through the ceiling and everyone will remember what he wore.
Such a revival of sponsor interest in Woods would be undoubtedly be commercially driven. Buckner notes that reaching a decision founded on ethical considerations is a more complex procedure.
He says: “The ethical issue is that if an organization believes Tiger’s behaviour, and the negative coverage concerning it, warranted ending an endorsement deal under a code of conduct or morality, then high golf ratings a year later does not justify re-signing Tiger.
“Ethical companies apply codes of conduct or morality consistently, not for convenience, public relations or profit.”
Either way, Woods will be around for a long time yet. For example, the Tiger Woods Foundation will continue to be the beneficiary of the AT&T National PGA Tour as it is under contract until 2014.
Ty Votaw, Tour Executive Director who led the bid to get golf back on the Olympic program, has said publicly that Woods would not be hosting the AT&T National event in 2010 July 1-4 since he has taken an indefinite leave from the game.
IOC president Jacques Rogge has made one comment that he was disappointed in the golfer’s behaviour but the Woods scandal exploded more than two months after golf’s return to the Olympic Games in 2016 had been confirmed by the International Olympic Committee.
One of the key points of the golf campaign was to bring to the Olympics athletes such as Tiger Woods as well as the huge TV following and mega sponsorship dollars. The IOC chose golf and rugby over baseball, softball, roller sports, karate, and squash.
Last week SportsFeatures.com reported that this scandal would have a US $12bn effect on the shareholders of Nike, Gatorade and his other sponsor entities. This was a rude wake up call hitting them smack in the most sensitive of places ‘their pocketbook’.
A study was released by the University of California, Davis by two economics professors, Victor Stango and Christopher Knittel, assessing the economic tsunami of the Tiger Woods scandal could reach up to $12bn for shareholders of Nike, Gatorade and his other sponsor entities. See our story
The study was based on nine sponsors with publicly available stock prices: Accenture; American Express; AT&T; Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf (Electronic Arts); Gillette (Proctor and Gamble); Nike; Gatorade (PepsiCo); TLC Laser Eye Centers; and Golf Digest (News Corp.).
However, the sponsors which have remained with Woods may find that loyalty rewarded with some substantial gains.
For more info on Michael Buckner please see http://www.michaelbucknerlaw.com/Keywords · Tiger Woods · Michael Buckner · golf
For more information contact:
Laura Walden ()
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