GM Lays off Tiger Woods

The lagging economy has even caught up to Tiger Woods, who was laid off by General Motors today.

The nine year advertising veteran’s fourteen major championships apparently weren’t enough for Tiger who still had a year left on his contract.

GM has been making huge cuts across the board and has lost more ethan seven billion dollars last quarter.

Tiger’s endorsement deal was believed to be worth at least $7 million dollars a year.

Woods’ agent Mark Steinberg tried to save face saying it was a mutual decision.

“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.”
Automakers are the single largest category of advertisers in U.S. markets and domestic automakers have cut back 18 percent and foreign carmakers have cut 5.4 percent for an overall drop of 11 percent this quarter compared to last year.

Woods only had two logos with Nike and Buick, since 1999.

Steinberg said he would “expect there to be some exposure on the bag” when Woods next plays.
“I’ve got a few ideas, and we’re in the process of working through that,” he said.

But in a conference call with reporters and analysts, GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner said the company will “take every action we possibly can” to avoid bankruptcy.

“We’re convinced that the consequences of bankruptcy would be dire,” he said, adding that the company will use every source of funding it can.

“We need to find a way to get through this, and that’s really our focus.”

Michael Ferguson from GMUAW Local 60 said he left a GM employee meeting Friday with more questions than answers.

“The question was brought up about bankruptcy,” said Ferguson. “Who wants to but a car from a company that’s bankrupt.”

The nation’s biggest domestic automaker reported a net loss of $4.45 per share during the quarter, compared with a record-setting loss of $39 billion, or $68.85 per share, a year ago. Its adjusted loss was $4.2 billion, or $7.35 a share, with an adjusted loss of $2.8 billion for its automotive operations.

Revenue fell to $37.9 billion from $43.7 billion, due largely to credit freezing across the globe.

GM said it had $16.2 billion in cash, marketable securities and readily available assets at the end of September, down $4.8 billion from the $21 billion it reported on June 30.

GM has said in the past it needs a minimum of $11 billion to $14 billion to run the company.

GM officials said in the conference call that it intended to cut a total of 7,000 white-collar jobs this year, up from 5,100 announced in July. GM had 32,000 U.S. salaried workers at the end of last year, down from 44,000 in 2000.

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