14 DAY TRIAL // Yesterday, another page in the Tiger Woods scandal was written, as it emerged that his wife Elin Nordegren had moved out of the house amidst speculation that he’d been anything but faithful during their marriage. To make matters only worse, Gatorade has announced that it will discontinue the Gatorade Focus Tiger drink, created after and endorsed by the golfer, X17 Online says.
Of course, the company is firmly denying that this unexpected turn of events in the relationship with Woods has anything to do with the controversy around his marital life and the car crash in which he was involved two weeks ago. It will discontinue making the sports drink not because Woods may be a cheater with whose name it doesn’t want to be associated, but because the drink wasn’t selling well to begin with, it says.
Sadly for Gatorade, no one seems to be buying the official version of the story. “Tiger Woods’ branded beverage – Gatorade Tiger Focus – will now be discontinued says Gatorade, a division of PepsiCo. And why? Oh, nothing to do with the car crash and all of the athlete’s extramarital affairs! I mean, obvs. Apparently, it’s just due to low sales. The sports drink debuted in March 2008. But Gatorade hasn’t parted ways with Tiger completely. Still, this seems like a step in that direction!” X17 writes.
More endorsement deals are set to fall through, the same media outlet estimates, in what could be the beginning of the end for Woods’ very lucrative side deals. If so, it wouldn’t be the first time that major companies are backing down in the aftermath of some scandal that rocks the media to its very foundation: a simple look at what happened with Michael Phelps’ endorsements after the pot smoking incident, or with Chris Brown after the Rihanna assault is enough to show that this type of behavior is standard.
Still, Gatorade is holding strong that this is purely a decision based on sales. “We made the decision several months ago... our relationship with Tiger continues,” the company says in a statement released to the media a short while ago.