The Tiger Woods scandal may be the biggest off-the-field sports story of the last decade. With sponsors like AT&T and Accenture dropping Woods — and with companies like Gatorade severely cutting back on ads featuring the golfer — people have wondered where EA Sports stands on Tiger’s infidelities, since he’s the face of the publisher’s golf franchise, Tiger Woods PGA Tour.
In a post yesterday on Peter Moore’s EA.com blog, the president of EA Sports announced that the company will continue with this month’s launch of the open beta for Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online, a browser-based version of the annual console series, which has been in development for the past year. And while Moore acknowledged the scandal, he said that Woods “is still one of the greatest athletes in history.” However, Moore made no mention of what will become of Tiger Woods PGA Tour, only saying that Woods will continue to be on “the masthead of this game [PGA Tour Online].”
As for Tiger Woods PGA Tour itself, it looks like EA has three options at this point. They could replace Woods with another golfer, but that’s highly unlikely — there isn’t a name in golf that’s anywhere near as recognizable as Tiger’s. EA could also simply remove Woods’ name from the series and rebrand it, maybe to something like “PGA Tour 11.” Or, they may even skip this year’s title, perhaps to move the series to a bi-yearly frequency (like Fight Night) or just to take a year off.
What do you guys expect will happen?
EA SPORTS Moves Forward with Tiger Woods PGA TOUR Online Launch in January [Peter Moore’s Blog]
