EA Sports is set to continue with plans to introduce a new Tiger Woods online game, despite the golfer"s recent public relations meltdown as a result of his adultery scandal. The move comes just days after AT&T joined other companies by ending its sponsorship deals with Tiger Woods.
Peter Moore, Electronic Arts Inc unit"s president, said in a company blog that they would begin offering the browser-based "Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online" this month, after a year of development and closed beta testing.
"Our relationship with Tiger has always been rooted in golf. We didn"t form a relationship with him so that he could act as an arm"s length endorser. Far from it," Moore wrote in a blog post yesterday. "We chose to partner with Tiger in 1997 because we saw him as the world"s best, most talented and exciting golfer. We struck that partnership with the assumption that he would remain near or at the top of his sport for years to come."
"By his own admission, he"s made some mistakes off the course. But regardless of what"s happening in his personal life, and regardless of his decision to take a personal leave from the sport, Tiger Woods is still one of the greatest athletes in history."
However, Moore did not write whether the company would be continuing with its next Tiger Woods PGA Tour video game, which is one of the company"s highest-selling sport games. Reuters reports that a spokesman declined to comment further over the speculation.