SociableSport

For this festive season, Tiger Woods' scandalous relationship trauma seems to be driving more search interest than the Greatest Story Ever Told.  

Tiger Woods, Jesus

But stories of infidelity or sacrifice are dwarfed by the search traffic for Christmas itself. What the Spirit of this "Christmas" wave is? I'm not sure. It could be gift ideas, or it could be celebration ideas. Either way, Christmas has certainly arrived... Perhaps Woods could piggy back this with an Oprah Christmas Special? PGA comeback event to be held on December 26th? OK, that's pushing it.

Tiger Woods, Jesus, Christmas

Here's a really interested thought-piece on the relationship between Twitter and Sport. Enjoy. 

"The use of Twitter by sports stars has closed the gap between fans & athletes. But where do endorsements and marketing fit into this new 1-1 relationship?" 

</object><div style="font-size:11px;font-family:tahoma,arial;height:26px;padding-top:2px;">View more documents from Mindshare.</div></div>

There's nothing like a contemporary advertising campaign. Do you think this example from Gatorade - recently divorced from Woods - has the flexibility to still good a good job for the brand despite Tiger's recent 'image change'? Probably not. Unfortunately, thinking about whether Tiger has "it" has taken on a whole new meaning: mental toughness not being one of them.

Celebrity news site TMZ (cited in the Indian Times) are adamant Woods' transgressions will "harm" his image - most notably as the face of Nike Golf - and suggest Woods' number could be up on other sponsorship deals in addition to the loss of Gatorade. His associative properties have certainly shifted and the Indian Times goes on to reference the Davie Brown Index, which measures celebrities' standing with consumers, where Woods has gone from 6th highest ranking celebrity endorser to 24th. Apparently the database comprises of 2,800 respondents but how often this survey goes out and how much it changes according to who's in the press and why, I'm not sure. 

But cast your minds back to 2004 and the David Beckham scandal. An Evening Standard poll asked London readers, 'Who is to blame for David Beckham's affair?' A staggering 41% blamed Victoria Beckham, 37% blamed David Beckham and only 22% blamed Rebecca Loos herself. Even David Beckham's own mother suggested Victoria was "partly to blame".

The situations are different: while Loos hogged most of the limelight as the 'mistress of choice', Tiger has multiple skeletons to remove from his closet. Yet, after a while, Beckham's image was restored as he and his family went about 'business as usual' and sponsors were un-phased.

When Kate Moss was photographed taking Class A drug Cocaine, associations with Calvin Klein, Rimmel, Chanel and Christian Dior were swiftly put under scrutiny by the press, but store chain H&M were the only brand to take immediate action to separate themselves from the troubled model but after no more than 3 months, Moss actually gained a new $1m+ deal with Virgin Mobile.

Far from being destroyed, these two personalities had their image shaken up - and soon all was forgotten as "in the past". 

According to US-based market research unit Nielsen, advertising featuring Woods hasn't appeared in US prime-time TV since November 29th, but perhaps Woods will go through a similar transformation to Beckham and Moss? Perhaps what he needs is a bit of calm: a period of time signifying the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one. Next, a new appearance, a new deal or a new campaign to differentiate the old personality from the reformed. So long as his performance on the golf course is unaffected he will always be a beacon for advertisers because that's the constant - the unchanging champion.

At least the PGA Tour sponsors are benefiting from even more attention to their number 1 star - imagine how many people will tune in to watch his next tournament... . Even now he is delivering more awareness than ever (although not for the best of reasons - but that's not my point!).

For more on Tiger Woods and Gatorade check out the announcement on BBC News.

Edit after live: Today (Thursday December 10th), bookmakers Paddy Power have offered Tiger Woods $1m to get behind their new betting property, 'Tiger's Birdies'. The 12month deal would include an undisclosed profit share arrangement. The bet offers 500-1 odds for anyone who can correctly predict the number of Birdies Woods scores across the first four days of a tournament.

Yes - Tiger isn't going to accept the offer but at least Paddy Power have got some free exposure in the press on the back of a clever piece of product development!

Another beautiful quote from Jerry Maguire:

I am out here for YOU.... You don't know what it's like being ME out here for YOU!

It is an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing SIEGE that I will NEVER fully tell you about, ok?!

It seems the naming rights saga has caught fire among the English FA Premier League . On the back of Newcastle United's announcement that St. James' Park is to be known as the "sportsdirect.com @ St. James' Park", Chelsea's Chief Executive Ron Gourlay has now revealed that Chelsea are preparing to follow the lead by selling the naming rights for Stamford Bridge. Like Ashley and Co. at Newcastle, Gourlay is insisting that the associated brand will only be able to add to the name, rather than actually change the name of the stadium altogether. 'Stamford Bridge' would therefore be retained in the name along with the assocation with "a suitable blue-chip company."

"Retaining the heritage of the stadium is paramount to considering such a move but we think that is achievable and on that basis we would enter into discussions over naming rights with the right partner for Chelsea", Gourlay told Chelsea TV.

"We understand that this is a sensitive issue for our fans and that is why we would keep the name Stamford Bridge in any deal".

Could it be that scenes like the below are soon to be a thing of the past within the giants of the game? Surely Abramovich doesn't need the money as much as Chelsea need the identity of their stadium?

A sensitive issue indeed, but Gouray feels that the financial advantage of selling the rights is essential.

"What we are not prepared to happen, and I am sure our fans will appreciate this, is allow our rival clubs in England and Europe to gain a competitive advantage over us in terms of the revenue they can generate through either expanding the capacity of their existing stadia or moving to a new stadium and then invest that upside in their team or the club. Those possibilities are not open to Chelsea for the foreseeable future because of the restrictions in expanding our stadium and the issues around finding a new site, so that means we have to be creative and look at our sponsorship architecture and see if we can create new value and new opportunities that keeps us competitive".

In 2004, Emirates paid Arsenal £50million to acquire naming rights on their new Ashburton Grove stadium for 15 years, and Allianz is charged £4m every twelve months for Bayern Munich's ground to bear its name. In the USA, Citigroup pay £10m so for the new New York Mets baseball arena, now called Citi Field.

Check out http://chelseafc.com for more information.

"With the renaming it was always going to be whatever brand it was, at St James' Park. For the remainder of this season, we already have sportsdirect.com on the Gallowgate so we'd like to take that branding through the rest of the stadium."
Derek Llambias, Manging Director

Tampering with brand equity is risky business, particularly when the equity is built by generations of sports fanatics.

How do you think it's going to be received by the Newcastle United faithful? In changing the Official Name of Newcastle United's home ground, are they changing the very essence of the club itself?

Post your comments below and read more on the debate on BBC Sport's 606 debate

"We are able to show that bringing the game to Australia and having the Asian continent with us at the same time-zone will benefit not only Australia, not only Asia, but the whole football world"
Frank Lowy, Chief of Australia's FIFA World Cup Bid and Australia's Richest Man

Asia comprises the world's fastest growing economies, the fastest growing television and media audiences and the fastest growing consumer markets. Intuitively, Lowy's claim seems to be sensible. But how valid is this regional bias? The three points below try to open this up a bit.

1. The combined audiences for West and East are broadly similar

By looking at FIFA's published TV and Out Of Home (which includes pubs and other public viewing areas) cumulative viewing figures by region we can compare the 2002 World Cup held in Asia with the 2006 World Cup held in Europe.

In terms of the number of viewers, comparing Europe with Asia is hard to swing in Europe's favour. In 2002 there were 2.7 Asian viewers to every European viewer. In 2006 this figure was cut to 1.6 but still, this is a huge difference. However, this only takes into account numbers for Asia and Europe. 'East' and 'West' is much broader.

By grouping together figures for Europe with North America, South America and Central America (EurAm) we get a better idea of what Western audiences actually add up to. We can then compare this with an Eastern group comprised of the Asia and Oceana (APAC). When we look at East vs. West in this hollistic way we get a slightly more even result. In the 2002 World Cup, held in Asia, there were only 1.3 Eastern (APAC) viewers to Western (EurAm) viewers but in the 2006 World Cup there were 1.2 Western viewers to Eastern viewers - despite the fact that the Germany World Cup was broadcast in 11 fewer EurAm territories than the 2002 World Cup.

So there wasn't that big a difference after all.

The audiences are pretty much similar from East to West. The drop off in audience attributable to changes in time-zones is nearly identical with both regions losing roughly 7% of their audience when the games were shown at more unsociable hours. Let's not forget, though, that with China's population alone being double that of the whole of Europe, Asia's 7% certainly represents more people. This brings us on to our next point - although the audiences are roughly the same, and the drop off is the same, advertisers will look for efficiency over reach and this may present the West with another argument against the Lowry.

2.  Rights fees are based on efficiency, not just reach 

Lowry also spoke about the revenue that an Australasian World Cup would bring in. He didn't go into specifics in the article I read but someone told me he'd quoted a difference of +$1bn. That's a lot of money and I'm not sure where he gets it from. Despite offering huge reach, there's going to be an awful lot of wastage in a market where the audiences are almost inconceivably large. In EurAm, penetration is much higher with a greater proportion of the total populations watching or experiencing the tournament. I don't want to waste any money speaking to people who aren't in the mood to listen, especially if there's millions of them.

Also, because there aren't many national broadcasters in the regions, the scope for competition among those looking to secure broadcast rights is smaller. Coupled with the lack of efficiency, this makes for risky - and tricky - business for those formulating broadcast revenue prediction models. Although, broadcast revenue isn't the only source of income from the tournament.

3.  A successful event needs the stadia to be full

Although we hate to admit it, everyone secretly loves the English. English football fans, like many of our counterparts, bring with them a fantastic enthusiasm for the game that heralds from decades of disappointment and ecstasy from following the nation's team. World Cup tournaments need these fans. They need them to fill up the stadiums and prevent what happened at some of Beijing's Olympic events where organisers had to give tickets away to locals for free (retail price was very high - around £90 per ticket) in order to fill the seats. In Sydney's Olympic games, kids were actually transported to the venues by buses to fill the venues with the right kind of audience.

What's the lesson here? Big TV audiences don't necessarily equate to a success on a national level.

We have a little time to go before the decisions for 2018 and 2022 will be made (December 2010) but at the moment, it seems as though the argument isn't as black and white as we may have originally thought. Let's see what FIFA say.

You can read more about Lowry's argument here
Picture found here

'Champions do not fall from the sky. They are born among us, live among us and are worshipped by us'

On the eve of October 30th 1974, in the Mai 20 Stadium in Kindshasa, Zaire, world Heavyweight Champion George Foreman against former Champion Muhammed Ali. After his refusal to obey his drafting for the US Army in a storm of political and racial significance, Ali had been spent over seven years forging his path to regaining a title he saw as rightfully his. Ali eventually met Foreman that wild night in 1974 and beat the man who had defeated him in the Fight of The Century three years earlier. The events before and during this famous bout are immortalised in the Academy Award winning documentary, When We Were Kings. Norman Mailer's book, The Fight, describes the events within the context of his views of black American culture. It was more than a boxing match, it was an event that defined an era.

On the afternoon of Sunday, June 7th 2009, Roger Federer will enter the Philippe Chatrier court at Roland Garros in Paris for the fourth consecutive year as a finalist in the hallmark claycourt event of the year - the French Open. It is the only one of the four tour majors Federer has never won, having lost on his four previous attempts to the same man - Rafeal Nadal. Victory will give Federer a career Grand Slam and tie him with Pete Sampras on 14 major wins. But with the coveted Coupe de Mousquetaires trophy that elluded the great American, he will surpass Sampras as, according to Andre Agassi, the Greatest tennis player to have graced the sport.

The significance of this victory, should it come, is not weighted in the political or social history of that October night in Zaire, but rather in an affirmation of a man - like Ali - who is widely considered to be a God of his sport. Greatness comes in many forms, but in individual sports like tennis, boxing or golf, the pressures - personal and professional - are so great that they can break even the most gifted. Now, after six years being at the top of the game, Federer is on the cusp of sporting immortality.

Illness at the start of the 2008 season, along with his recent loses to Rafael Nadal not only at Roland Garros but then at Wimbledon and Melbourne Park have revealed a certain frailty within Federer that had otherwise gone unnoticed. It is this frailty - this mortality - that reminds us that Roger Federer, although a global superstar, is human. Like every one of us, he has to overcome emotions like anxiety, fear and self-doubt in order to succeed. In Federer we see a man who has dedicated his life, his soul and his very being to his sport. In the process he has had to bear great suffering: breaking down in tears at the Australian Open final and having to stand and watch as Rafael Nadal lifted a Wimbledon trophy that would have seen him become the first man in history to win six consecutive titles at the All England Club.

This year's French Open has been an up-and-down tournament for Federer and his route to the final is arguably his hardest yet (incidentally, this will be his 19th - tying Ivan Lendl's record). Two of his last three matches have seen him pushed to the very edge of defeat, taken to five sets first by Tommy Haas in the fourth round and then in the semi-final by Juan Martin del Potro. In both matches there were times when Federer looked down and out, staring down the barrell of the gun with no response and no means of stopping what was coming; yet he prevailed. His path to the final demonstrated all the qualities of a Champion - a belief greater than the sum of his doubts and a determination more powerful than the strength of his body - qualities that he will need with him if he is to succeed tomorrow.

Standing in Federer's way is Robin Soderling, an apparent anomaly of the game. Thrust from obscurity, Soderling  has smashed all odds to shreds with victories over David Ferrer, four-time defending Champion Rafael Nadal and having come from 1-4 down in the fifth set to beat Fernando Gonzalez in the semi-final. Should Soderling continue this remarkable run and halt Federer on his quest for greatness there are many who feel he will be defying the very natural order of things - not just of sporting achievement but of human accomplishment, of reward for the deserved and of justice itself.

However, should Federer succeed in defeating his foe (as he has done in their nine previous meetings), he will prove once and for all that the greatest Champions are those who are humble in defeat and gracious in victory; like Ali before him he will prove that true Champions are those who pursue universal greatness when the world seems to be against them; he will prove that the Champion Elite are those who harvest, year after year and season after season, a burning hunger and passion in their hearts so deep and so bright that no man no matter how strong and no matter how fierce can ever extinguish their unfaltering goal: to be the best there has ever been.

Roger Federer, I wish you the very, very best of luck.