Tiger Scandal Could Cost PGA Millions

(CBS)  Reports alleging nine extra-marital affairs were followed up today with front page headlines bearing steamy text messages. It's a difficult time for Woods and his family, to be sure. But as CBS News correspondent Jeff Greenfield reports, it may be crippling for the game of golf.

At the Chevron World Challenge golf tournament Sunday, the most famous face in golf was the man who wasn't there. Tiger Woods' absence was attributed to an auto accident.

Nor was there a single commercial featuring the golfer whose commercial endorsements are a large part of the estimated $130 million he earned this year.

His absence is hardly a mystery. The eruption of stories linking the most famous athlete in the world to a growing string of extra-marital affairs has made any public appearance - even in a commercial - awkward to say the least. Woods has pleaded for privacy to deal with what he has called "transgressions."

But the private conduct - or misconduct - of Tiger Woods has brought with it potentially devastating public consequences to the sport of golf he has come to dominate, consequences that could add up to hundreds of millions of dollars.

More on Tiger Woods:
Tiger Texts Show Weakness for Woman
Self-Proclaimed Woods Flame: Sorry, Elin
Tiger Woods' Woes Mount
Gatorade Drops Tiger Woods Drink
Tiger's Mother-in-Law Home from Hospital
911 Caller from Woods' Home was Panicked
Is Tiger Woods a Sex Addict?
Meds Involved in Tiger Woods Accident?
Elin Nordegren Moves Out
Police Sought Blood Test for Woods
Photos: Tiger Woods
Photos: Sports Sex Scandals
Photos: Elin Nordegren
Tiger Woods: I Let My Family Down
Parnevik: I Thought Tiger was a Better Guy
Tiger's Alleged Voicemail Message

"Tiger Woods is the face of golf. He dominates the sport as no athlete says since the 1920's and Babe Ruth," said Kurt Badenhausen, an editor at Forbes.

Badenhausen says numbers dramatically measure the impact. When an injury kept Woods out of the 2008 PGA Championship, ratings dropped 55 percent. When he came back this year, ratings for the Tour Championship jumped 83 percent. Counting PGA events and major tournaments, Woods' presence led to a 136 percent jump in ratings. Why? Because Woods is more than the man who may be the best golfer who ever lives.

"He transcends," Badenahusen said. "Young people, old people like him."

That's why Tiger Woods' troubles may be making sponsors gun-shy. They want their products linked to Tiger the champ, Tiger the great competitor, who won the U.S. Open on a broken leg-not the Tiger who is the punch line of a joke.

It's not that Woods himself is facing any financial worries. He's already earned a billion dollars or more, and companies like Nike, which has built a whole product line around him, and the video game maker EA are sanding by their long-term contracts.

"In the long term, tiger will be fine," said John Rowaday, an expert on sports marketing.

The problem is more immediate. The economy has drained corporate commitments to major tournaments, so golf badly needs as big and as engaged an audience as possible. If Tiger Woods is seriously diminished - on the fairways and TV screens - this non-contact sport will take a crushing body blow.

[amacd385]

How about some serious reporting on the only serious part of the Tiger story?

Tiger vs. Letterman's Corporate Media Fix

Until today I treated this Tiger celebrity circus the way I react to all such drivel --- to ignore it entirely, as I do all TV, MSM, Sunday morning talking-head shows, sports, WWF, NASCAR, and the entire 'distractive industry'.

However, today I bothered to think about the Tiger thing, and the recent Letterman thing, and I was shocked about the differences (rather than similarities) and more shocked that there has been no discussion about deeper investigation as to how the Letterman unwanted publicity case was 'fixed' by the corporate media.

Both men are serial adulterers. Both are 'world-class' (sic) celebrities --- on TV heavily, public persona, money machines, manufactured images, etc.

However, the men are different in terms of both their exposed behaviors, their skills, their race, and their place in the corporate media world.

Letterman's behavior was far more egregious and criminal including as it did not only sexual adultery, lies, deceit, contrived 'cover-up' like Nixon, but the far more serious and illegal crime of sexual abuse through using the POWER of his workplace position to force himself on lower level female employees of the company that he owned.

As the law and any feminist would quickly agree Letterman's sexual abuse was both serial, premeditated, predatory, and grossly illegal because of the abuse of POWER against women.

Why Letterman's workplace sexual abuse was not further investigated and prosecuted (both for the acts and the criminal cover-up) to the full extent of the law is a massive open question of Federal Civil Rights law.

It would seem to me that the ONLY things worth talking about with regard to Tiger and Letterman are the differences in race, treatment under the law, and probable corporate media cartel/cabal involvement in influencing and 'fixing' both the Federal Legal outcome, and the public image outcome --- such that the white man apparently guilty of the vastly greater crime (both in the eyes of the supposed legal system and the public morality standards) received no legal, financial, or moral penalty, while the black man subject to merely bad judgment and bad behavior has been ruined financially, in moral image, and expunged from his occupation and society's graces.

Letterman is still fully functioning (without even a serious slap on the wrist or the briefest suspension from his job), making millions for the corporate media Empire, and fully accepted in society's eyes without even appearing chastened, in fact laughing!

WHY? WHY?? WHY???

Who, what group, what cabal, what hidden EMPIRE has orchestrated this awful miscarriage of social and legal justice between the more guilty white comedy star and the far less guilty black skilled athlete? And how have we been privately conned, distracted, and lulled into accept this undue influence charadeing as public legal and moral judgment?

Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine

[taylorsucram]

I love this, what a show. Let me be clear, the only reason I watch golf is because of Tiger Woods. I don't buy any product he endorses or any product Brett Farve, Kobe Bryant or any other "spokesman" hawks. I'm not that pliable to suggestion. I watch him because history is being made almost every time he plays. When he isn't playing, I find something else to do. Tiger will survive, his financial future is set, will Golf maintain the heights it has climbed on the back of Tiger Woods? Don't think for one minute that "Money" and "Ratings" won't determine the time frame in which "Golf" comes to Tiger on bended knee. It will come down to Ego, his and Golfs.

[bpai99]

Another overwrought, the-sky-is-falling perspective from a dying media outlet resorting to sensationalism while pretending to be pure.

[thesevenveils]

Grown ups chasing a ball down a tiny hole is pretty stupid.
And watching this on TV is even more stupid.
If golf is excitement, then watching paint dry is too.

[goeswest]

That comment just shows your complete lack of knowlege of this beautiful and exciting game.

[CBSTV]

How does this person's private romantic or sexual dealings impact his business -- that of hitting a golf ball with a club? It seems to me that his personal activities are just that: personal.

[ky7474]

There are a few other high profile players that basically mentored Tiger. They were in the inner circle. They had to know alot of what was going on. Their integrity should also be in question. There's more going on here than just a large sexual appetite!

[california64]

Any company still endorsing Tiger has been completely boycotted by our family, friends and neighbors. Co-workers are following suit. This is not a one time mistake, this is a serial cheater. He is impregnating his wife while he is having unprotected sex with countless other women. This crosses a line that cannot be tolerated.

[cbsblogger]

Two questions:

Would you buy a Buick or a Nike from a Cheetah?

If you were Tiger, what would you mama say (or do) about all thi, other than giving you an appropriate backhand for stupidity?

[jwesel1]

Golf is such a big joke. Just try to get a ball in a hole and act like the sky has fallen when the ball doesn't go in the hole! The only thing that interests people is the obscene amount of money and now even that has disappeared as well.

[goeswest]

That comment just shows you complete ignorance to a very beautiful and exciting game.

[newsworthy8]

There are a lot of good players that can fill his spot and create better excitment than he did. When you think about it, he was a whinner, not winner, a whinner.
Just think of all the great players around the world, they can do it. I know, I will conntinue watching our good players, American and what ever we have..he is out of the picture, might be the best thing that happened to golf..