Business forgiveness can be had for Tiger

Golf Betting Lines

02/28/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Good news for Tiger Woods is he can drink whatever replenishing product he'd like.

Bad news is, that's because Gatorade has joined a long list of sponsors running from Woods as if he were a burning building.

Gatorade, Accenture and AT&T have now flat-dropped Woods. Gatorade originally suspended the making of his own Gatorade and that was just after the accident and before the infidelities.

Gillette and Tag Heuer have basically taken him out their respective marketing campaigns.

Nike and Electronic Arts have Tammy Wynette-d Tiger and are sticking by their man, but that's five gigantic corporations that have said they'd rather not have Tiger Woods anywhere near their operations.

Make no mistake about it, these companies bought an image. That image was the world's and maybe history's best golfer. Tiger is the biggest athlete in the world and in the landscape, ranks up there with Jordan and Ali as sportsmen who transcend sports.

If image is what you're buying, Woods is clearly damaged goods. If you owned a company right now, would you want the face of it associated with these things you read in the tabloids?

Our top spokesperson has had somewhere around 14 mistresses while married. Our top spokesperson has been in some type of rehab facility and get this, it's probably for sex addiction.

He's toxic. While in the big picture of life, Woods has just been a bad husband and a bad guy, but he's broken no laws...well other than reckless driving.

Woods can recover from this with sponsors.

The only recent comparison for Woods was the saga of Kobe Bryant.

When the Lakers' star was accused of sexual assault in the summer of 2003, McDonald's wasn't "Lovin' It" and dropped him. Nutella chocolate spread itself elsewhere and Sprite bailed for LeBron James.

Bryant continued playing that summer in the playoffs and did well. The charges were eventually dismissed against Kobe and in time, actually a fairly brief amount of time, he got back into the endorsement game.

"Got back into the endorsement game" isn't entirely a fair description of what happened to Bryant.

According to Forbes magazine's Top Sports Brands of 2009, Bryant ranked sixth in the athletes category. That's not a bad leap in six years from pariah to sixth-biggest athlete brand.

Woods would be wise to follow Kobe's path back to the promise land down to the letter, including buying a ring for Elin the size of a horse's head.

Woods already has two factors going for him that Bryant didn't.

First, Bryant was charged with the crime of sexual assault. Woods hasn't had any charges levied against him and that tag Bryant was saddled with makes a huge difference. People can forgive a scumbag, but not a criminal scumbag.

Secondly, Woods ranked first on the Forbes list. In a bad economy, Woods was able to make that much money at that point in his career. What's to say that if Woods rehabilitates himself, he can't get back there? Woods was bigger than Kobe was in their primes, although basketball faithful can be more forgiving than golf faithful.

It seems obvious, but Woods' first step to sponsorship rehabilitation is to never, ever, ever do something like this again. If Woods is truly sorry, or just arrogant enough to want his money and sponsors back, he can not get caught back up in affairs with porn stars, party planners or Perkins hostesses.

You never heard another peep from Bryant about infidelity.

When Bryant was going through all of this, his game on the court improved a little. He pleaded with the Lakers to trade Shaq and in the following years, Kobe won an MVP and world championship. He even took the Lakers back to the Finals before breaking through. Now Bryant is being discussed as one of the best players in the history of the game.

This shouldn't be a problem for Woods. We've already been leaked pictures of him running and hitting balls. Golf will probably be his sanctuary and don't forget, he's really good at it. Woods, right now, if he never played another tournament, is the second-best player of all-time. His pursuit of Jack's records will be the story. Not the multitude of women on the side.

Things look bleak for Tiger now with sponsors, but this is probably the very worst of it. I can't see Nike or EA Sports jumping ship, so Woods sticks with them.

We don't know what happened in that Colorado resort years back. We know prosecutors had enough to charge Kobe with a horrible crime and through some details, we learned, even without the charges sticking, something somewhat bad happened that night.

Tiger was a selfish guy who is one of the worst husbands around. He didn't have to spend months fending off a prison sentence. He cheated on his wife. A lot. For that he should be ashamed and may very well get divorced, but the road to repair is a straight one.

Don't cheat.

Excel on the course so you can remind those sponsors what they used to spend all of that loot on before.

And if that doesn't work, call Perkins. With all of the free advertising Tiger gave them, I'd have to think they would throw a couple bucks his way.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

- The Dalai Lama has never heard of Tiger Woods, huh? Due respect Your Excellence, but I'm calling bull. If the Lama hasn't heard of Jay Haas, I respect that, but not Tiger.

- Is Tiger the first born-again Buddhist?

- Golf jokes about ugly pants are cliche. Golfers are bad dressers, understood. However, has there been as consistently poor a dresser as Bernhard Langer? Think about what you've seen him in and think about it next time. They clearly don't observe the no white pants before Memorial Day thing in Germany.

Movie moment - Possibly headlining my list of under-appreciated films is "Biloxi Blues." Check it out and you'll see a great performance by Christopher Walken. Spectacular line that can't be repeated involving him telling one gentleman needing three promotions to become a body part. Great work by Matthew Broderick and it's a funny coming of age story.