The Wall Street Journal

February 19, 2010
By Darren Everson and Suzanne Vranica

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla.—Tiger Woods publicly apologized for his sex scandal Friday, setting the stage for the star golfer’s return to the sport.

In his first public appearance since the post-Thanksgiving car accident that touched off the scandal, Mr. Woods expressed remorse in a prepared statement.

“I am deeply sorry for my irresponsible and selfish behavior,” said Mr. Woods at the TPC Sawgrass golf course, where the PGA Tour is headquartered.

Some 40 people were in the room when Mr. Woods spoke, including his mother. His wife, Elin, wasn’t present.

“I owe to my family to become a better person,” he said. He said he plans to start additional treatment and therapy.

“I have a lot to atone for,” Mr. Woods said.

Mr. Woods has been absent from public view since the day after Thanksgiving, when he was injured after crashing his Cadillac sport-utility vehicle into a fire hydrant and a tree near his home outside of Orlando around 2:25 a.m. His wife was said to have broken side windows of the car with a golf club to help extricate him. Mr. Woods, in the news conference, sought to dispel reports that his wife had hit him.

In the following weeks, allegations of marital infidelity by Mr. Woods arose, as at least a dozen women claimed or were reported to have had affairs with him. On Dec. 2, Mr. Woods said via his Web site that “I have let my family down,” and nine days later he announced on the site that he would be taking an indefinite break from golf.

Many sports-marketing experts don’t think that Friday’s event will help Mr. Woods resuscitate his endorsement career.

“People will be Tiger golfer fans again, but that will not translate that into a resurrection of his endorsement career,” said Kevin Adler, founder of Engage Marketing, a sports-marketing firm in Chicago.

Global consulting firm Accenture PLC and AT&T Inc. had severed their ties with the golf superstar. AT&T earlier this week declined to comment on news of Mr. Woods’s statement. Several other sponsors, including Procter & Gamble Co.’s Gillette and Tag Heuer, a unit of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, had distanced themselves from the golfer by limiting his role in their marketing campaigns.

Mr. Woods was able to hold on to some of his sponsorship deals. Nike Inc., sports-memorabilia retailer Upper Deck Co. and PepsiCo Inc.’s Gatorade sports drink all said their relationships with the golfer were unchanged when the announcement came that Mr. Woods would make his first public appearance. Upper Deck declined to comment Wednesday.

“Nike fully supports Tiger and his family through this difficult time,” said a spokeswoman for the apparel and sports-equipment maker. “We respect his privacy. We look forward to him returning to golf.”

Jonathan A. Jensen, a director at Relay Worldwide, a sponsorship consulting firm owned by ad giant Publicis Groupe, said “consumer brands that want to target women are never going be in a position again to have a meaningful partnership with Tiger.”

Indeed, research shows that Mr. Woods is no longer considered an endorsement worthy celebrity. Davie-Brown, an Omnicom Group Inc. company that tracks the appeal of celebrities using online polls of U.S. consumers, said Mr. Woods was the 11th most endorsement worthy celebrity before the ugly disclosures, a ranking that has him sitting along side other celebrities such as Bill Cosby, Paul Newman and Jennifer Aniston. In the firms most recent ranking, Mr. Woods fell to number 2250, which is on par with celebs such as Pauly Shore and Pam Anderson