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Tiger Woods: Athlete or Brand?

Nation Sports Editor Dave Zirin denounces Woods' latest ad as just another distraction from the tournament.

Dave Zirin

April 9, 2010

MSNBC goes live to Augusta National for the Masters, where the National’s Chairman Billy Payne scolded Tiger Woods for disappointing "all of us and more importantly our kids and our grandkids." Sports Editor Dave Zirin gives Payne the "just shut up award" for criticizing Woods while he oversees a tournament that "defines segregation in golf and still defines the exclusion of women in golf."

But Zirin is unhappy with Woods too, in particular with his latest Nike ad, featuring Woods’ face and a voiceover of his late father. Zirin calls the ad "another shellac of distraction" from the tournament and questions if Woods is a human or just a brand. "All the sympathy we’ve ginned up for him over the last several months…it’s all been about a narrative to sell us more crap with swooshes on it."

Dave ZirinTwitterDave Zirin is the sports editor at The Nation. He is the author of 11 books on the politics of sports. He is also the coproducer and writer of the new documentary Behind the Shield: The Power and Politics of the NFL.


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