Tiger Woods New “Religion”

In case you didn’t see today’s “press conference” with Tiger Woods, it was an interesting event to say the least. Tiger came out and definitely spoke from what appeared to be his heart – that is if we can believe him after his lies of the past. Here are some random thoughts that crossed my mind as I listened to and watched him. Please keep in mind my background is marketing which included using public relations to market products so you might need to excuse my cynicism during this article.

Since we cover new athletic apparel, my first thought was to wonder if he would come out in Nike golf clothes. When he came out dressed in a sport coat without a tie, I wondered if it was new golf apparel although I didn’t expect new golf shorts – that would be so inappropriate to wear while apologizing for infidelity. I then looked to see if his clothes would be the first in a line of new golf clothes but I couldn’t find a Nike logo anywhere – I guess we will have to just get along with the paparazzi photos of his wife dressed head to toe in Nike workout clothes taken the day before. And no, Elin also didn’t show up wearing a new workout outfit – she was nowhere to be found. Finally, Tiger hugged and kissed his mom when he finished his words so I look over her clothes and also didn’t find any athletic apparel nor Nike basketball shoes to try and make her seem more stylish or taller.

The next thing I noticed is that Tiger reached out to the PGA Tour (not wearing PGA Clothes) as well as to his former sponsor Accenture to apologize for the timing of his remarks. Tiger spoke about his religion, Buddhism, and it made me wonder why he didn’t say that he would be under counseling of Rick Warren, Billy Graham (being passed away is a problem detail), or another TV Evangelical where he could use his star power to increase ratings and donations of which Tiger would accept as low as 50% of them. Instead, Tiger spoke about returning to counseling for his addiction but again I expected to hear the name of the facility for the naming rights fees that could have been generated.

In summary, I was very disappointed in what I saw and heard from Tiger Woods today. I expected to hear about new athletic apparel, new athletic clothes, new golf apparel, new Nike golf clubs, or some type of endorsement for something because it will be hard to get by on the nearly $1 Billion that he has made in endorsements over the years. While I expected to hear about how finding some type of religion would play a role in his recovery, I thought he would also return to his familiar “religions” of endorsements and making money but they were nowhere to be found. I was left with what appeared to be a sincere apology for today with new athletic apparel and new golf apparel left for another day. If Tiger needs help on developing those lines, I would be happy to help in my own sarcastic way to help him somehow create new golf shirts to capitalize on his misfortunes as we need to turns these lemons to lemonade. Wouldn’t it be great to see Tiger launch a line of athletic apparel from some strip joint or call girl service? We could create a logo for “Tiger Town” with leopard print and tiger stripe lines while directing consumers to an adult website where all of his previous “girlfriends” would pose on a bearskin rug to keep the animal theme alive – I hope the site has a large database to handle all of those photos. If those new tees and adult website didn’t generate a billion dollars in revenue, it would only be due to the economic downturn. Please add your comments for his new golf clothes line and we will pass them along to Tiger – let your imagination run wild and have fun!