14 DAY TRIAL // One of the big news stories of the last week was the driving accident in which Tiger Woods, the best known golfer in the world, was involved, which then spun out to show his personal life trouble. The star sports person has now apologized to his family and fans for his indiscretions but a lot of people are saying that his image was forever tainted and that Tiger Woods is no longer a name that brands might want to associate with.
Given the recent success of Tiger Woods PGA Tour, which this year has posted record sales and is probably getting a new installment in early 2010, Electronic Arts could be affected by bad press for the star it associates its golf franchise with.
But the company has released a statement that reads “Our strong relationship with Tiger for more than a decade remains unchanged. We respect Tiger's privacy, we wish him a fast recovery and we look forward to seeing him back on the golf course.”
Electronic Arts is not the only company confident in the star power of Woods, as Nike and Gillette have also announced that their deals with the golfer would be unaffected by recent incidents. After all, golf is a sport that has been dominated by Tiger Woods for quite some time and ditching him would mean that EA Sports will have to choose among players like Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, Padraig Harrington and Retief Goosen to boost the PGA videogames with their charisma.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2010 was well received mainly because of the new Motion Plus add on for the Wiimote, which enabled players to get off better shots with less effort. The game was one of the first to support the new piece of hardware and next year's version will probably expand its uses in the game.