Will Tiger Woods’ absence from golf mar the economy?

here are some experts who are sharing their honest opinion about the golf economy after the Tiger Woods’ era. Tiger Woods’s retreat from the golf for a while might have actually had an impact on US’s annual golf economy which currently stands at $75 billion. The former president of CBS Sports, Neal Pilson is a sports broadcast consultant and he says on Tiger Woods that his indefinite leave from the world of golf competition is affecting the TV advertising purchases for the coming PGA tour events. With the soft economy, the advertising inventory was not sold at the first half of 2010 since the personal life of Tiger Woods went into a tizzy.

Now if Tiger Woods sit out of the golf competition for an indefinite period, then the sponsor companies would likely take the approach of wait and watch period before making any commitments regarding the sponsorship of the golf tournaments. Hopefully the sponsorships will return to normal once Tiger Woods is back in the golf circuit on the regular basis.

As per Pilson, the networks of golf could end up in making some much required financial adjustments with the advertisers who have purchased the spots for events when Tiger Woods is expected to play. As per Pilson, when Tiger Woods went through the knee surgery at an early stage of his career, the economy of golf suffered the same consequences. Thus if the ratings of the TRP are well below because Tiger Woods is not playing, then the sponsors might come in agreement with the financial adjustments.

There are some channels and sponsors who have not been affected by the personal scandal of Tiger Woods in any aspect. For example, the cable network, who has been associated with the PGA tour for the last three years have a deal with the PGA tournament for the total of 15 years. They seem not to be affected by the outside the golf domain details about Tiger Woods. According to them, it would not affect the advertising sales at any cost. In fact they claim to see improvements on the advertisement sales in the recent times.

Page Thompson, who is the president of the cable network, also says that although Tiger Woods have made a negative impact in 2010, it is not going to matter in the long run. Although there are some short term effects for the broadcasters, there is not much of long term impact till date. As per most of the Golf industry experts, the economic impact will not be a long term issue at all.