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| Maria Sharapova after winning the Porsche Grand Prix in Germany in 2012. Porsche, Nike and TAG Heuer quickly distanced themselves from her after she failed a drug test at the Australian Open. |
Maria Sharapova’s announcement on Monday that she had failed a drug test at the Australian Open was shocking. But perhaps more surprising was how quickly some of her sponsors turned their backs on her.
Just hours after Ms. Sharapova, the world’s highest-paid female athlete, admitted she had tested positive for the recently banned drug meldonium, Nike said it was suspending its relationship with her.
“We are saddened and surprised by the news about Maria Sharapova,” the company said, adding that it would “continue to monitor the situation.”
Other sponsors quickly followed. Porsche echoed Nike’s statement, saying it had decided to “postpone planned activities.” The Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer said it had “suspended negotiations” to extend Ms. Sharapova’s contract, which had expired in December.
Not all of Ms. Sharapova’s sponsors have suspended their relationships with her. Evian, for one, said only that it would “follow closely the development of the investigation,” according to a statement reported by Reuters.
The statements from Nike, TAG Heuer and Porsche were certainly not definitive — suspending ties is not the same as severing them. But in this fast-paced social media age, will people realize the difference?
The swift decisions, even acknowledging their nuance, are still puzzling. After all, isn’t Nike the same company that stood by Lance Armstrong for years as he battled doping accusations? More than that, the company publicly defended Mr. Armstrong in 2012 after the United States Anti-Doping Agency released a report that supported the claims.
“Lance has stated his innocence and has been unwavering on this position,” Nike said at the time, before dropping him a week later.
Nike has also stood by other athletes in their times of trouble, most notably Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant. Nike signed an endorsement deal with the quarterback Michael Vick in 2011 after he had served time in prison for his involvement in a dogfighting operation. (The company had dropped him in 2007, but only after he admitted in court papers that he funded the dogfighting ring and helped kill dogs that were underperforming.)
Nike declined to comment beyond its statement about Ms. Sharapova.
TAG Heuer, for its part, signed the New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady to an endorsement deal last fall after the team was caught using underinflated game balls.
The rush by companies to distance themselves immediately from Ms. Sharapova is perhaps a product of social media, where outrage spreads like wildfire. (It could also have something do with the fact that Ms. Sharapova, a five-time Grand Slam champion, is past the prime of her career and her marketing power may be waning.)
In recent months, companies have almost seemed to trip over one another to dissociate themselves from any whiff of controversy. Last May, brands including Crayola and Pure Leaf Iced Tea used Twitter to announce they were no longer advertising during TLC’s popular reality show “19 Kids and Counting” after a report that one of the show’s stars, Josh Duggar, had been investigated on suspicion of molesting underage girls. In July Subway suspended ties with its longtime spokesman Jared Fogle, just hours after his suburban Indiana home was raided by investigators. Mr. Fogle later pleaded guilty to s*x acts with minors and distribution of child pornography.
More recently, Nike terminated its relationship with the boxer Manny Pacquiao, who is also a politician in the Philippines, a day after he apologized for making anti-gay remarks in an interview.
“If a company comes out and they’re proactive and they make a statement like that immediately, it removes the possibility of the spotlight being turned on them,” said Bob Williams, chief executive of Burns Entertainment and Sports Marketing, which represents brands that hire celebrities for endorsements.
(Nike has also ended deals with the football player Ray Rice, who was caught on video punching his fiancée in the face, and the South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius, who was convicted of killing his girlfriend in 2013.)
On the surface, at least, Ms. Sharapova, 28, did everything right to avoid this kind of backlash. She held a news conference, acknowledged taking the banned drug and provided a plausible explanation for why she failed the test.
“I would think in those circumstances that as a brand you would take a little bit more of a wait-and-see approach to see what the public court of opinion thinks,” said Kevin Adler, president of the marketing company Engage Marketing.
But perhaps companies have simply had enough with athletes making excuses.
SOURCE: Nytimes
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