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Reaction to Tiger Woods Apology

By Rick Karcher, Michael McCann, Geoffrey Rapp, Greg Skidmore, and Howard Wasserman

Sports attorney Jay Reisinger has a thoughtful reaction to Tiger Woods's apology:

Some in the media have asked me whether Tiger took the correct path in handling this matter with respect to public relations given that I had represented Sammy Sosa, Andy Pettitte, and A-Rod (and others) in somewhat similar circumstances. To be candid, I would have provided different advice, and employed a different strategy, but that is not to say Tiger (and/or his advisors) chose the wrong path. At the end of the day, Tiger only had to apologize to his wife, his family, and his friends, which he did. He does not need to apologize to the American public or his sponsors. With his statement (and I?m sure well before then), he apologized to the only people he needed to apologize to. This was a personal failure, not a professional failure.

I agree with Jay that Tiger might have been better off employing a different apology strategy. A full press conference in which he answered questions, or a simple written apology could have served him better. The strategy he instead choose seemed like an attempt to get credit for being a public event or even press conference, but in many ways it was neither. It was Tiger Woods reading a statement that had been carefully written, probably by a number of folks, in a controlled environment without the possibility of questions.

On the other hand, a lot of people seemed to like the speech, so maybe it was the right move. When's the last time an apology generated this much attention? NY Daily News has a good list of 21 famous apologies, most of which are from the last 10 years.

Full post as published by Sports Law Blog on February 22, 2010 (boomark / email).