Gatorade Drops Tiger Woods Endorsement; More to Follow?

[ABOVE: Gatorade Drops Tiger Woods Endorsement]

GATORADE DROPS TIGER:
IS GATORADE THE FIRST OF MANY?

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Tiger Woods Scandal: Library of DBKP Articles
Over 20 DBKP articles on the Tiger Woods Scandal from the beginning.

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DID GATORADE REALLY WANT TIGER WOODS ASSOCIATED WITH ITS SLOGAN:

“IS IT IN YOU?”

Gatorade down, how many to go?

From Gatorade Drops Tiger Woods’ Drink:

Gatorade has dropped Tiger Woods’ sports drink. It’s the first major endorsement loss for the golfer in the wake of his cheating scandal and bizarre one-car crash

The statement released by the company continued in that happy, say-nothing-mostly style that’s become famous whenever a company is dumping someone.

ONE interesting point, though, was the following disconnect from reality that the company tried to slip by people–probably with a straight face:

Gatorade released a statement Tuesday saying the move to discontinue its “Tiger Focus” drink had nothing to do with the golfer’s growing scandal and that the decision was made before Tiger’s car crash and allegations of extra marital affairs.

Sure.

And the reason out-of-towners don’t walk alone at night in downtown Detroit has nothing to do with that city’s murder problem.

RadarOnline had this additional information about a statement released to the website today.

A Gatorade spokesperson released this official statement to RadarOnline.com: “As reported last month, we decided several months ago to discontinue Gatorade Tiger Focus along with some other products to make room for our planned series of innovative products in 2010. We hope to share more about our 2010 plans soon.”

RadarOnline also had some interesting comments about what an unnamed Gatorade spokesman said off-the-record.

But you’ll have to hit the RO link to find that out.

Will more sponsors follow? There’s been a few rumbles and whispers, but that’s all they are for the present. However, if a few more followed Gatorade in the days to follow, don’t be surprised. The public image built by Team Tiger over the years is in tatters.

Whether it can ever be put back together again remains in doubt. There’s reports that Tiger’s team has offered wife, Elin Nordegren, $55 million to stick by the golfer’s side for two more years, but that’s looking less likely.

It was reported today that Elin Nordegren bought a home in her native Sweden for $2 million. Can divorce court fireworks be far behind?

Elin Nordegren Woods–it’s still Woods for the present–moved out of the couple’s home yesterday and is supposedly getting ready for the move back across the Atlantic. Don’t expect Tiger to pull out all the stops to keep her in the fold. She’s worth a lot of $$$ by his side. She’s and the couple’s two children are part of the Tiger Woods brand.

Without them, Tiger Woods is a whole different brand name.

And ESPN knows a little bit about pimping a brand name and ceaselessly hawking athletes it thinks it can ride on the back of to pump up ratings.

The loss of Gatorade comes just a few days after ESPN’s Peter Keating offered his predictions on that front: Woods in no danger of losing sponsors.

Keating’s other big story for 2009 was “How unemployment will stay at 5% for the year“.

Just kidding. To be fair, who could have seen this coming?!?

As one report stated, Gatorade’s slogan, “Is it in you?” took on a whole new meaning in relation with Tiger’s extramarital exploits. Ouch!

Seriously, it wouldn’t be surprising to find out that more drop the tarnished Tiger by the month’s end. All commercials featuring Woods were pulled from the TV coverage of the golfer’s own charity golf tournament this week.

That can’t be encouraging to the brand name formerly known as Tiger Woods.

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ALSO at DBKP: EVERYTHING you wanted to know about the Tiger Woods Scandal–and more.
** Tiger Woods: Wife Elin Nordegren Moves Out; Gambling, Alcohol, Drugs Issues
** Tiger Woods: Porn Star Says She’s Number Nine, Oprah Chasing Tiger
** Tiger Woods Updates: Mindy Lawton, Cori Rist and Lost Sponsors
** Mindy Lawton, Tiger Woods 5th Mistress: Looking for the 6th Mistress
* Tiger Woods 4th Mistress: Jaime Jungers and Waiting for Number 5
* Jaime Jungers: Mistress Number 4 in Tiger Woods Scandal Surfaces
* Tiger Woods Scandal: Tiger Woods Christmas Picture and Other Scandal Humor
* Tiger Woods Scandal: Pictures, Jobs, Drugs and Money
* Tiger Woods Scandal: Rachel Uchitel Received $1 Mil to CAncel Press Conference, According to Sources
* Tiger Woods Affairs: Rachel Uchitel To Confess
** Tiger Woods Affairs: Affairs, Confessions, Transgressons and Kalika Moquin
* Tiger Woods Affairs: Tiger Woods Confesses to Affairs
* Tiger Woods Affairs: Woods Paid for Rachel Uchitel Australia Trip -UPDATED
* Tiger Woods Affair: Another Other Woman
* Tiger Woods Affair: Rachel Uchitel Exposed as Other Woman in Cheating Scandal
* BREAKING: Why Tiger Woods’ Wife Hit Him
* Tiger Woods: Affairs, Fights, SUV Crashes and Wife with a Golf Club -UPDATED

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NOTE: Yes we know, there was a middle-aged woman taken from Tiger Woods’ home early in the AM that was supposed to be Tiger Woods’ wife’s mother. But there’s only so many hours in the day and it’s been covered to death by now and we wanted to hit the Gatorade story. Something had to give.

by Mondo Frazier