Our monthly critique of the ever-entangled sporting and money worlds starts with Tiger Woods and his former major sponsor Accenture – whatever they do

... And what Tiger Woods did next did count. ... And what Tiger Wood did next did count. Image: Getty Images

They were a fascinating cultural marker, those Tiger Woods ads for Accenture. You’d often see them in airports, exhorting jet-lagged passengers to, “Go on. Be a Tiger.” They’d draw an equivalence between Woods’ ability to play golf and some kind of calculus of moral sentiments. Most of all, they left people wondering: what is it that Accenture actually does?

It’s famously over now, replaced by (no joke) pictures of elephants riding surfboards. L’Affaire Tiger ended the decade and this association in a neat bit of symmetry – Accenture began the decade by changing its name from Andersen Consulting and neatly avoided any fall-out by splitting from its parent, Arthur Andersen, which went under in the Enron debacle. It was a good run: Accenture got its new name out there on the back of the world’s most accomplished athlete, and Woods took Accenture’s money for six years.

The usual questions that accompany any celebrity endorser plagued by scandal have been asked. How wise was it for a conservative business, such as a consulting firm, to tie its brand so tightly to a living figure, so much so that he appeared in 83 percent of the company’s advertisements, according to one media analyst? An easy question, in hindsight, but one that avoids an even more obvious prior question: how did the partnership ever make sense in the first place?

The Tiger product mix was always something of a weird amalgam, bringing together varying constituencies like a big-tent political party. There was Nike from the outset, which was utterly logical and in turn has been the most successful (and is, unsurprisingly, the one holding to him most firmly). But then you had the likes of Buick, makers of cars for grandfathers across America, using this guy in his 20s to sell the vehicle because, well, Granddad watches a lot of golf. Meanwhile, the kids were snapping up Tiger’s videogame, made by industry giant Electronic Arts (EA), before they graduated up the consumer chain to where they could buy Woods-endorsed Tag Heuer watches.

It was Woods’ amorphous quality – as Barack Obama once said of himself, the blank screen onto which people project their own views – that made him the most successful athlete-pitchman ever. Different groups saw what they wanted to see,

and part of the viciousness of the reaction against Tiger has more than a little to do with the public’s grievance at its own sense of self-delusion.Speculation continues in Woods’ exile about how much damage his bottom line has taken, with one University of California, Davis study claiming shareholders in his pool of sponsors are taking a $5 billion to $12 billion hit, based on market returns for the 13 trading days after the Thanksgiving weekend accident.Curiously, Accenture was one of the companies least affected, an outcome predicted by economic theory, according to one of the study’s co-authors, Christopher Knittel. Professor Knittel explained that as Accenture didn’t add much value to the Tiger brand as his other sports-related sponsors, it gave Woods more leverage in negotiating their deal. “If the company therefore ends up paying Woods something close to its extra profit from his endorsement, it isn’t much worse off without him than with him.”

Whichever way it plays out, Tiger’s power to sell should remain undiminished. His handlers at the International Management Group have received no shortage of advice, particularly when it comes to spin control, but here’s another free piece – Woods should be no poorer than he was pre-scandal, because he can change the product mix. It’s no surprise that Nike and EA, two companies whose target audiences respond to edginess, have voiced their support where the likes of AT&T have gone running. Being a Tiger should mean fewer grandparent cars, more underwear ads.This monthly space will continue to follow every step, dedicated to exploring the junction of sport and business. By the end of it, we may even find out what Accenture does.

– Jeff Centenera