TIGER WOODS: THE MAN VS. THE BRAND

Like most fans, when the news first broke that Tiger Woods had been in a car accident, my first reaction was that I hoped his injuries were not serious. Then as the story began to unfold, I initially didn’t give it much thought, although the details of how the accident happened didn’t quite add up. But then with each passing day my voyeuristic tendencies began to take over as the alleged affairs began to surface. Tiger had it all: youth, great looks, a charming personality, prodigious talent and a beautiful loving family, not to mention almost a billion dollars in earnings with potentially even much more to come. It seemed downright bizarre that he would first risk it all, and then do such a miserable job of handling the bad publicity (how much does he pay his public relations team anyway?).

Let’s go back to the billion dollars. He will shortly become the first athlete to reach that rarified figure and a majority of it comes from his endorsement fees. If anyone wonders if brands still matter, just ask the companies that are willing to invest that kind of money to be associated with “Tiger” the brand - Nike, GM, Gatorade, American Express and the beat goes on. Nike has already stated that they will continue their relationship with Woods (hey, the guy moves shiploads of their products). Several commentaries on Tiger’s ordeal have focused on that fact that even though he has the right to privacy in his personal life, he relinquishes some of those rights when he enters into our world. After all, once he markets himself as brand by endorsing products that he and his backers hope the public will purchase because of the equity of that brand, he himself becomes a commodity.

But I believe there’s more to it than that.

When I was growing up, the great guitarists I wanted to emulate made it look so easy to play their instruments that I was certain I could do the same. Once I really began to practice, and the better I became, the more I began to appreciate how incredibly talented and creative artists like Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix were. It’s the same experience we had watching Michael Jordan defy gravity, the unbeatable Michael Phelps gliding through the water at record breaking speeds, or how effortlessly Tiger could drive a ball 300 yards. All but a few of us could ever hope to achieve that kind of greatness and even their closest competitors are in awe of their talents. But instead of becoming discouraged, we celebrate that one of our species could push the human boundaries to achieve such greatness. As Tiger said in his first official statement after the accident, “I am human and I am not perfect.” The problem is that we are human too and therefore also not perfect and so sometimes we need our heroes to reach higher on our behalf.

Final thought: My wife and I went to see This is It and were so moved to see a confident Michael Jackson preparing for his comeback that for 90 minutes we forgot about the circus his life had become in recent years and just sat back and enjoyed this gifted artist once again putting his heart and soul into reclaiming his place in music history. Once Tiger works out his personal problems in private with his wife and gets back to the links, doing what he does better than anyone, I trust most of his fans will put this sideshow behind them as well.