One of the key elements of a sponsorship is that people talk about the star or team to whom you have hitched your commercial wagon.  There is little doubt that people talk about Tiger Woods.
Rory McIlroy joined the Nike Golf team at the start of this season but has struggled to find his form and on Monday he lost his place as World Number One to Woods who had not held the top spot since his highly public marital indiscretions of 2010.
Victory in the Arnold Palmer invitational tournament was enough to recover top spot on the eve of the US Masters, setting up a great head to head between him and McIlroy at Augusta next week.
It also enable Nike to roll out a solo ad with Woods having begun his rehabilitation in a TV ad alongside McIlroy in January.
This time they used the phrase “Winning takes care of everything,” which has angered social media users who see it as a statement that the sins of the past can be forgotten through victory on the field of play.
In fact it’s a phrase that Woods has continually said in response to questions about whether he thought he would get back to number one; but in a morally polarised world of free comment, this has been either ignored or overlooked.
From Nike’s perspective it has created conversation, around a renewed winner on their team and in the world of sports marketing, that probably shifts more gloves, clubs and caps than any amount of softer advertising.

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