No need to weigh in much more about the strife and times of Tiger Woods. Except this: Why doesn’t the world’s only billionaire athlete, in effect Tiger Inc., have access to better advice? Any public relations novice could have told him that, however embarrassing and painful, he had to get out in front of that snowball of awful news that he well knew could easily turn into the nightmarish avalanche that it has. And, no, a prepared statement about “transgressions” doesn’t qualify. You go on camera for this one and dump it all out there.
The idea is to defuse and pre-empt – not enable tabloid and internet hell for yourself and family that becomes a daily drumbeat – from TMZ.com to the Today show to SportsCenter crawls.
Of course, sordid details and salacious rumors are none of our business. But that’s not relevant to the world that Woods inhabits – and capitalizes on. The one where he makes an estimated $90 million a year in endorsements. These, of course, are based on fame. And image — heretofore, sans scandal.
But when an image-shattering, perception-altering crisis hit, Woods handled it worse than Michael Vick.