Tiger Woods Update: As Tiger’s Mistress Total Rises, His Q Score Falls

I will not, on these pages, go into any great detail about the number of women (outside of his wife) that Tiger Woods has been involved with. What I will touch on, however, is the impact that his transgressions are having on his present public standing as a role model and his future potential as an individual that companies would want to be connected to. Marketing Evaluations, a Long Island firm that measures celebrities' appeal with consumers (or Q Score), surveys 2,000 sports fans every year in March, asking respondents if they like or dislike 500 athletes and other personalities. The firm also polls 1,800 people twice a year for their opinion on athletes, entertainers, musicians and other celebrities. Woods' positive sports Q Score was 44 last year, second only to Michael Jordan. His negative Sports Q Score was 15.

The firm's president, Steve Levitt, said: "A 3-1 ratio is dramatic; that's an excellent performance." Marketing Evaluations latest poll, however, gave Woods a 32 Q Score and a 16 negative Q Score.

Additionally, advertisements featuring Tiger Woods have disappeared from prime-time broadcast television and many cable channels following reports of his extramarital affairs, according to data from Nielsen Co. The last prime-time ad featuring the 33-year-old golfer was a 30-second Gillette Co. spot on Nov. 29, according to New York- based Nielsen. Woods also was absent from ads on weekend sports programs tracked, including NFL games, Nielsen said. To understand just how striking this is, last year between Nov. 29 and Dec. 7, Gillette, alone, ran a single 15-second spot with Woods 25 times in prime time, according to Nielsen.

Other athletes' indiscretions have knocked down their appeal with fans; Roger Clemens' Q Score plummeted after reports of his affairs with country singer Mindy McCready and other women, and in the wake of the Justice Department investigation into whether he lied to Congress about the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Although contracts typically contain behavior clauses, it seems unlikely at this time that Tiger's sponsors will jump the No. 1 ranked golfer's ship. His $110 million in annual income from endorsements and tournaments, as estimated by Forbes magazine. Woods ranked as the world's fourth-highest paid celebrity in the 12 months through June 30, the magazine said. In October, he became the first athlete to top $1 billion in career earnings --- so he represents a significant investment that corporations such as Nike, Gillette and EA Sports are extremely reluctant to walk away from altogether.

Before the reports, Woods ranked just below Oprah Winfrey on the Davie Brown Index which tracks 2,800 celebrities. The index was created by Los Angeles-based Davie Brown Entertainment to provide a way to measure the use of celebrities in campaigns.

Legendary sports/celebrity agent Leigh Steinberg offered a bit of advice to Tiger in a recent interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. Steinberg said Tiger Woods needs to do what David Letterman has done when he get out in front of and get some level of control of the news cycle after revelations of his affair with aide Stefanie Birkitt came to light. He goes on to say that Woods needs to first, assess his own behavior, second, own it or admit what he's done openly, and then make sure all of the known facts are gathered so Tiger Woods Management can rapidly answer any false claims in the future, and finally apologize and publicly explain that he's taken steps to control his behavior for the future.

Tiger Woods, for now, appears to be caught up (granted, by choices he has made) in the tentacles of an octopus that seems to be a cross between reality television, talk-radio and 24 hour cable news-run amok.

Yes, I do believe that there are more important things going on in the world than Tiger's indiscretions. Nevertheless, in some ways, he belongs to us. He is a product of our superficial celebrity-driven society; and yet, he is also the personification of some our greatest aspirations --- our desire to achieve; to transcend. I hope for the sake of his own life and sanity, not his celebrity, that he does whatever is necessary, to make it right.