Off the bandwagon

"Chevron is committed to investing in education programs around the world. Our partnership with the Tiger Woods Foundation is one of many," a Chevron spokesman recently said in a response to a reporter's questions on the company's plans for the charity tournament and how much money Chevron has contributed in the past. "We are closely monitoring ongoing events to better understand how our partnership with the foundation may be impacted," the spokesman said.

In the post-op of Tiger Woods's flameout, University of California-Davis economists Christopher Knittel and Victor Stango estimate that shareholders of companies that Mr. Woods "endorses lost $5-12 billion in wealth."

The study did not include Chevron, Knittel told Platts, and instead focused on product sponsors such as Nike, Gillette, Accenture, and Gatorade. The margin of error is a rather high 5%; the study equates Woods's high-profile infidelities with a "shock event" that time to time may rock a share. Their method measured losses "relative to both the stock market as a whole and a set of competitor firms -- in other words, relative to all firms that do not use Mr. Woods as an endorser."

Asked about any Woods fallout for Chevron, Knittel said: "I could potentially see that Chevron might be influenced by what occurred, but not as affected" compared to product sponsors.

Though oil majors put in a presence at tennis and golf tournaments -- with NASCAR races making the list too, the link between hot-shot celebs and oil majors seems a relatively thin and subdued one, unlike telecom phones, late-night informercials for exercise gear (Suzanne Somers's ThighMaster indelibly etched in US popular culture) and global credit cards. Given the whimsy of celebrities, accomplished athletes among them, maybe that's a good thing and one formula better left untested.