Which Tiger Woods Sponsors Dropped Him as the Result of Scandals?

In the wake of Tiger Woods' late 2009 car accident and the following acknowledgement by Woods of marital infidelity, some of Woods' sponsors cut ties with the golfer in 2009 and 2010. Which ones? Some biggies.

Gatorade Was the First to Go

The first of Woods' big-time sponsors to break its deal with the golfer following revelations of Woods' extramarital ... ahem, "shenanigans" ... was Gatorade.

Gatorade announced it was discontinuing its "Tiger Focus" brand of sports drink in late 2009. However, Gatorade claimed its decision had nothing to do with the Woods scandals, and that claim was later confirmed when the decision to drop the Woods brand was traced to a time prior to Woods' car crash.

So, in fact, the timing of Woods getting dropped by Gatorade looked bad (and maybe Gatorade would have dropped Woods regardless), but the decision to discontinue "Tiger Focus" preceded the scandals.

More Woods Sponsors Exited in Late 2009 and 2010

Woods was incognito for much of early 2010, allegedly in treatment for sex addiction. Meanwhile, more allegations of more (alleged) affairs kept popping up in scandal rags. Woods had a lot of major sponsors. What would they do?

Through 2010, several other of Woods' sponsors dropped Tiger, and those were all certainly (although not publicly acknowledged as such) the result of Woods' scandals.

AT&T and Accenture both announced in December 2009 they were dropping their sponsorship deals with Woods.

Late in 2010, Gillette (owned by Proctor & Gamble) said it would not renew its sponsorship agreement with Woods.

So the Tiger Woods sponsors who cut ties with the golfer in the aftermath of his scandal-plagued year were AT&T, Accenture, Gatorade and Gillette.

Of course, more than just those four companies have ended sponsorship contracts with Woods since then, but athletes and companies enter into and exit out of sponsorship agreements all the time. Those four - Gatorade, AT&T, Accenture and Gillette - are the four biggies that dropped Woods soon after the scandals broke.

There is one other deal whose end might indirectly be blamed on the scandals. EA Sports announced in 2013 it was discontinuing the Tiger Woods PGA Tour game franchise. One can surmise that had Woods' star not been tarnished by the scandals of 2009-10, sales would not have stagnated or dropped, and the game franchise would have continued.

See Tiger Woods endorsements for the current list of Tiger Woods sponsors. (Don't cry for Tiger, he's doing just fine, thank you very much.)