Cost Cutting

It appears that Tiger Woods was just too costly for General Motors. The troubled automaker has canceled its multimillion dollar deal with the golf star with one year left to run on the contract.

The five-year deal, believed to be worth at least $7 million a year, was to end in 2009. Woods’ agent at IMG, Mark Steinberg, said the decision to end the endorsement one year early was “absolutely mutual.”

“It was a combination of things,” Steinberg said. “Tiger was looking to gain some more time, and certainly it was an opportunity for GM to reduce its spending with everything going on.”

GM’s vice president for North American sales, Mark LaNeve, says the separation is the result of discussions earlier in the year and is not related to the company’s campaign for $25 billion in loans from the federal government.

It might not be related to the automaker's quest to get a federal bailout, but it certainly does improve it's public relations situation slightly after the private jet fiasco last week.

Meanwhile, Citigroup, which has just gotten yet another multibillion dollar bailout from the federal government, continues to hold to its naming rights for the New York Mets new stadium that is set to open in 2009. The naming rights are worth hundreds of millions over the life of the contract; $20 million per year for 20 years.

Seems to me that the name should go. The bank can't afford it. More to the point, Citigroup can't justify the expenditure.

UPDATE:
Hot Air takes a closer look at the naming rights of stadiums and arenas around the country and notes that the bailouts are turning out to be nothing more than a public subsidy levied on top of still other public subsidies.