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Much in the press this weekend of Tiger Wood's eagerly awaited comeback at Augusta this Thursday. And later this evening, along with thousands of others, I too will be logging on to see how he manages the tournament press conference, the first open press interview since he plummeted down the sporting pedestal last December. It seems that we should expect his regular style of bland and unimaginative answers, no matter what the press ask of him. Tiger was never one to speak out of turn, adding safe value to many of his hitherto lucrative sponsorship deals.
In fact, it's the consideration of 'Brand Tiger' rather than 'Golf Tiger' which interests me, with the two being inextricably connected, of course. According to Lawrence Donegan, writing in The Observer yesterday, Tiger has lost an estimated £26m of annual sponsorship earnings, largely from the withdrawal of Accenture and AT&T. I wonder whether those monies are to be re-invested in alternative corporate branding work or thankfully returned to internal coffers? Meanwhile Nike, EA Sports and Upper Deck continue to 'keep the faith' and according to Forbes, the Tiger brand still has sufficient financial clout to make him the top athelete brand in sports. Expected to still be the world's highest paid athelete in 2010, his brand is worth an estimated $82 million, exceeding that of some of the biggest names in the sports world combined - including David Beckham, Roger Federer and National Basketball Association stars. LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.
And I think it's this aspect of the 'human brand' that makes the Tiger Woods phenomenon all the more extraordinary - an actual human being who represents 100% of the values, imbued meaning and differentiation in the field in which they compete. I cannot possibly comprehend the pressure that that must put on one, as we now all know to be, all-too-human individual.
So it's back to the golf course for Tiger, where his super-human brandness resounds and where he can once again play amazing golf and for the sake of both himself and his sponsors, rehabilitate Brand Tiger.
