Could Tiger Woods Be A Good Thing For Event Sponsorship?

If you want to play the sports marketing game, there's really only a few options in town; the primary two being partner with an event property or create an endorsement deal with a recognized athlete. Well before the Tiger situation, brands were moving away from one-off athlete endorsements and allocating more of their marketing spend to other forms of more measurable media. Add on to that the risk of single athlete deals, and The Guardian today suggests that Tiger's indiscretions could be the tipping point for marketers.

The Guardian writes:

On the whole brands are moving towards sponsoring tournaments instead, as tournaments – unlike sports stars – do not have affairs, fight people in nightclubs or start hurling abuse at passers by. Tournaments are safe.

The Tiger Woods saga is the final nail in the coffin for other sports stars hoping to use their athletic prowess to bag double their wages in sponsorship and endorsement deals and associated perks. It may have started with footballers but the rot is spreading. However clean the sports stars may appear to be, big brands are going to be intensely wary of all of them from now on. Will golfers ever get a Gillette deal again? I doubt it. Will successful Olympians, dreaming of post-Olympic sponsorship, ever get their wish? Deeply unlikely.

Of course, there's always going to be somebody who makes money in a bad situation.

That somebody The Guardian was referring to was lawyers, but what about event sponsorship?

Could the "well, if it could happen to Tiger and his sponsors" thought process lead more brands to choose a safer route with event properties?