OK everyone, you can breathe again – he won and his knee didn’t give in. Last July I wrote a blog about the effect Tiger Woods’ absence from The Open would have on golf, and on his return I thought it would be interesting to see just how much the sport has missed him.

The world’s economy has of course changed dramatically since Tiger picked up his last trophy, impacting on all sectors, including sponsorship in North America, where companies are expected to increase spending on sports, arts, cause and entertainment marketing by just 2.2% to $16.97 billion this year, compared to 11% growth the year before (IEG). On top of this, viewing figures were down by almost 50% across eight tournaments minus Tiger compared to the year before (Nielsen).

Put the two together and it adds up to one big ‘Welcome Back Party’ for golf’s most vaunted star with more then a sense of perfect timing. The significance of this return can be measured by the eagerness of marketers to crash the party.

He may have lost one of his sponsors - Buick – in the downturn but his other backers are wasting no time in heralding his return. Gatorade, Tag Hauer and Nike (it’s brilliant – watch below) have all launched new campaigns this week with Cindy Davis, President of Nike Golf summing it up well – “We knew when Tiger returned it would be a big, if not the biggest, sports story of the year. We wanted to capitalise on that.”.

Need any more evidence? Well some of the loudest sighs of relief have probably come from the governing body of the sport in North America, who even launched their own ‘Tiger Returns’ micro-site (http://www.pgatour.com/tournaments/r470/video/tiger_returns.html).

It’s somewhat unlikely that even Tiger Woods can turn the world’s economy around (if only), but he does provide some much-needed distraction. I just hope that knee is well fixed – it has a huge corporate responsibility to support.

By Dominic Curran on February 26th, 2009

Tags: Brand marketing, Golf, PGA Tour, Tiger Woods