Tiger: NO PRIVACY FOR YOU!

The Emperor has no clothes.  I have just read another article on another site written by a very prominent sports writer claiming that Tiger’s “transgressions” are a private affair.  Nonsense.

Nothing Tiger has done entitles him to privacy or a private life other than what can be privatized by a closed door or a closed gate.  He was entitled to privacy only at our good graces and we gave it to him.  No questions asked. 

Athletes and other entertainers have choices and some chose to do their jobs and go home with their minor celebrity and a few million per year even if they are among the best at what they do.  If they choose this workman like approach, they get to have some semblance of a private life to the extent it is possible. 

Others chose the mega-wealth commercial route and when you sell yourself, you sell ALL of yourself.  That’s the bargain and it always has been.  You must accept the terms and conditions if you wish to reap the benefits.  Most of those that choose the commercial route have virtually no conscience or sense of embarrassment and thus are perfectly fine when they get paraded in front of the world with their metaphorical, or literal, pants around their ankles.  They are willing to weather the storm and are not foolish enough to expect the privacy they deliberately relinquished.

He sold us “Tiger Woods”.  Children around the globe chanted “I am Tiger Woods” in commercials.  Even more children attended camps and idolized him.  Adults, fellow golfers, and even athletes from other sports spewed forth accolades that bordered on lust as they pumped his image for higher purses and higher prices.   

TV contracts escalated because of his talent and his image.  Ticket sales rocketed so idolizing parents could take their kids to see this knight in shining armor.  Until our economy hit the skids, golf courses sprang up in droves as did green fees, sometimes in violation of the precepts of supply and demand and fueled by this super human image.  Shoes, clubs, shirts, golf balls, and yes, undamaged Cadillac’s and Buicks were sold at premiums to their true value because he hung his squeaky clean, freakishly talented image on them. 

He parlayed this into the greatest fortune in the history of sports.  The premiums we paid purchased 155 ft. yachts , Gulfstream’s, Estates in multiple luxurious locales.  We didn’t mind.  We were happy for him.  He was what sports needed and if he benefitted handsomely for cleaning up our image of professional athletes and celebrities of all sorts, so much the better.  He was not only the best AT what he did, he was the best OF what he did – or so we thought.

That is precisely what WE purchased.  We didn’t pay premiums for these goods and services so he could obtain things that others only dream of.  We bought HIM and we were sold a bill of goods.  We got screwed (pun intended).  We have a right to know the flaws in the things we purchase and we purchased Tiger Woods.   He sold us defective merchandise and he cannot accept the spoils of his enterprise and claim entitlement to privacy when we didn’t get what we paid for. 

With the information that we are entitled to, we can then make an educated consumer decision as to whether we wish to continue paying premiums for things he has attached himself to. 

Sadly, there are other people attached to this mess that he, and only he, created.  There are two small children who will hear about this when they get older whether they like it or not.  There is an exquisitely beautiful woman who, from all appearances anyway, has been a good mother and bought the same bill of goods we did.

 She will be ok after surviving the embarrassment and will certainly not have the same financial concerns that so many women in her position face when this happens on the small stage, regardless of any decisions that she may make.  Her lack of privacy is regrettable but it comes with the territory.

Tiger will lick his wounds and win more tournaments.  His endorsements will continue at some level yet to be negotiated.  His privacy is gone forever. 

For years we have been comparing Tiger with Jack.  When Tiger married and had children, more comparisons were drawn.  We granted Tiger the same personal privacy as we did Jack, and for many of the same reasons.  Jack still has his.