Tiger Wood’s Press Conference?
Tiger Woods stood in front of the world and made a 13 minute statement apologizing for his behavior. He said “I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled. Thanks to money and fame, I didn’t have far — didn’t have to go far to find them. I was wrong. I was foolish. I don’t get to play by different rules. The same
boundaries that apply to everyone apply to me. I brought this shame on myself. I hurt my wife, my kids, my mother, my wife’s family, my friends, my foundation, and kids all around the world who admired me
Like many people in the world I do not really care about what Tiger Woods does in his personal time. Whatever happened is between him and his family. He has brought excitement to the game of golf and is single handedly responsible for the worldwide popularity of the game at the moment.
Tiger Woods is not the first human being to cheat and he will not be the last. But I am very interested in how Tiger Woods and those who work for him are handling the current crisis from a public relations standpoint.
I believe that Tiger Woods has mismanaged the public relations aspect. He waited for three months after the initial car accident to appear in public and make a statement. Meanwhile the paparazzi and the tabloid media have had a field day and many of their stories and innuendos have gone unchallenged.
The press conference itself was a bad idea. To being with it was not a press conference. Nobody was allowed to ask him a question. Most of the media was not allowed in the room. He was talking to a room that had a few media representatives but mostly his friends, family and the people who work for him.
The camera angles were controlled and did not show clear shots of all the people who were in the room. Tiger said in his statement that “I don’t get to play by different rules”. But can many other people (including our politicians) get away with holding a “news conference” under such circumstances?
I was a little surprised at the outrage that was expressed by some members in the media and the public. I was puzzled at companies that dropped endorsement deals with Tiger in the past three months. Did these companies cancel these long term deals because of Tigers behavior or did they take the opportunity to get out of long term financial commitments considering the state of the economy?
The question is whether Tiger let these companies down. Imagine Tiger Woods (whose net work is over $900 million) sitting down with senior employees of multinational companies (who themselves are millionaires) and negotiating marketing and endorsement agreements. There is very little that these parties will not know about each other.
Most of these companies that do business with these athletes and other celebrities understand and know them a lot better than the general public does. Also, do companies like AT&T and Accenture that dropped deals with Tiger Woods have any more credibility than him?
Did Tiger Woods let you and me down? The honest answer is no. We should not be naïve enough to believe that celebrities like Tiger Woods are role models. The real role models should be our parents or our teachers or any other person who has set high standards for themselves and for others.
Related posts:
- In Defense of Tiger Woods
- Fox News Analyst Wants Tiger to Convert
- Should Human Beings Save the Tiger?
- Time for India & China to Set Agenda
Category: Sports & Entertainment
I would appreciate more visual materials, to make your blog more attractive, but your writing style really compensates it. But there is always place for improvement
Thank you very much for the constructive criticism. I agree that there should be more visuals.