High-Deductible Health Policies Linked To Delayed Diagnosis And Treatment
The out-of-pocket expense of mammograms, MRIs and other tests and treatments can be several thousand dollars each year when you have a high-deductible health policy.
Lester Lefkowitz/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Lester Lefkowitz/Getty Images
In 2017, Susan learned that she carries a genetic mutation that may elevate her lifetime risk of developing breast cancer to 72 percent.
Her doctor explained that individuals who have this mutation in the BRCA2 gene have choices in treatment. Some people opt for a preventive double mastectomy. But Susan could instead choose to undergo increased cancer screenings, which, for her, would mean an annual mammogram and annual MRI scan.
Because she had just had her first child, Susan chose increased surveillance — that meant she’d be able to preserve her ability to breastfeed.
Both Susan and her husband, who make their home in Broomall, Pa., have insurance provided through their respective employers to help pay for medical treatment. But there’s an expensive hitch: These annual scans she’d need would be pricey, and their companies offered only high-deductible health plans.
Susan’s annual deductible for her plan (which covers her and her child) is $6,000 annually. (NPR has agreed to use only Susan’s first name because she worries any publicity might jeopardize her job.)
“I’ve worked at my employer for 17 years,” she says. “When I first started, there was no paycheck deduction for health insurance and my copay was only $5. But in 2011, my employer switched to only providing high-deductible insurance plans.”
Susan went in for her first mammogram and MRI in February 2017. Her out-of-pocket cost for the MRI was more than $2,000. The bill for her mammogram was $1,088 (although she was eventually able to appeal and have the charges for the mammogram reduced to $191).
As a result of the high bill, Susan decided to put off her 2018 annual screenings until she had dealt with paying off the bills from 2017.
Susan’s story of delaying care because she’s underinsured is not an outlier. A study published last month in Health Affairs examined claims data from a large national insurer for 316,244 women whose employers switched insurance coverage from low-deductible health plans (i.e., deductibles of $500 or less) to high-deductible health plans (i.e., deductibles of $1,000 or more) between 2004 and 2014.
The study group consisted of women who were in low-deductible plans for one year, then switched to a high-deductible plan for an additional one month to four years. The control group consisted of women who remained in low-deductible plans.
In particular, the researchers looked at the relative effects of such plans on women who have low incomes versus those with higher incomes.
Women with low incomes who had high-deductible insurance plans waited an average of 1.6 months longer for diagnostic breast imaging, 2.7 months for first biopsy, 6.6 months for first early-stage breast cancer diagnosis and 8.7 months for first chemotherapy, compared with low-income women with low-deductible plans.
In some cases, delays of that length might lead to poorer health outcomes, says J. Frank Wharam, an internist and specialist in insurance and population health, who led the study. More research needs to be done to confirm that, he says.
Interestingly, women with high incomes who relied on high-deductible health plans were not immune to such delays — they experienced lags of 0.7 months for first breast imaging, 1.9 months for first biopsy, 5.4 months for first early-stage breast cancer diagnosis and 5.7 months for first chemotherapy, compared with high-income women with low-deductible plans.
The researchers also found that having a high-deductible health plan was linked to delays in care whether the women lived in metropolitan areas or not and whether they lived in neighborhoods that were predominantly white or predominantly nonwhite.
“In general, we are finding that the effects of modern high-deductible plans on access to care are sometimes predictable but often surprising,” Wharam explains.
“In addition to well-recognized factors that can influence how quickly a patient is diagnosed and treated — such as income and education levels — other aspects of her life likely play a role too,” he says, such as her familiarity with her disease and insurance benefits, her previous experience interacting with an insurer, her tolerance of risk and her familiarity and ease with the health care system and its jargon.
Other recent studies have noted similar delays in diagnosis and treatment for complications from diabetes, cardiovascular illness and other conditions. And a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2017 found that 43 percent of adults with health insurance reported difficulties in meeting their deductible — up from 37 percent in 2015.
Dr. Veena Shankaran is co-director of the Hutchinson Institute for Cancer Outcomes Research at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where her work focuses on studying financial challenges experienced by cancer patients. Though not involved in the Health Affairs study, Shankaran says the findings don’t surprise her.
“We’re seeing that high-deductible plans are really the epitome of the access-to-care problem,” she says. “People don’t have the liquid cash to meet their deductible, so you see delays in care or even avoiding treatment altogether.”
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from 2007 through 2017, enrollment in high-deductible health plans that are linked to a health savings account increased from 4.2 percent to 18.9 percent among adults 18 to 64 who had job-based coverage, while enrollment in high-deductible health plans without an HSA increased from 10.6 percent to 24.5 percent in that same age group.
Meanwhile, enrollment in more traditional workplace plans decreased.
The Patient Access Network Foundation, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., assists underinsured patients who have life-threatening chronic or rare diseases get access to medications and treatment by assisting with out-of-pocket costs. Dan Klein, the organization’s president and chief executive officer, says he has noticed an uptick in the number of patients seeking PAN’s help.
“One thing that worries me,” Klein says, “is that Congress is very focused on lowering prescription drug prices. That’s a good goal, but it’s meaningless in an environment where patients still can’t access care or medications because of their deductibles.”
Susan resumed screenings this year. She says she did look into patient-assistance programs, such as the one offered by Right Action for Women, which helps individuals at high risk for breast cancer get access to MRI screenings. But she did not meet the criteria.
In preparation for her next scan, she has established a flexible spending arrangement at work and a health savings account so she can pay for at least some of her medical expenses from tax-free income. And she has been setting up payment plans with her health care providers. Still, concern over how she and her husband will pay for looming tests and treatment preoccupy the couple.
“After that first MRI bill, I wanted to give up,” Susan says. “Because, in addition to dealing with the BRCA diagnosis, the insurance bills were overwhelming.
“I sometimes think about opting for surgery as a way to deal with my mutation,” she adds. “But then I get nervous — because I’m afraid of the resulting bill from the hospital.”
Erika Stallings is an attorney and freelance writer based in New York City. Her work focuses on health care disparities, with a focus on breast cancer and genetics. Her work has appeared in HuffPost, New York Magazine, Jezebel and O, The Oprah Magazine. Find her on Twitter: @quidditch424.
Tampa Bay Lightning Collapses In First Round of NHL Playoffs
NPR’s Audie Cornish talks with Greg Wyshynski, ESPN senior NHL writer, about how the Tampa Bay Lightning went from one of the year’s best teams to best team in NHL history to be swept in the first round.
Tiger Woods Biographer Says Golfer’s Masters Comeback ‘Transcends Sports’
Woods’ recent Masters title follows a 10-year drought of major tournament victories. Jeff Benedict, co-author of Tiger Woods, says: “What we’re seeing now is someone who loves what he’s doing.”
DAVE DAVIES, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. On the last hole of the Masters Golf Tournament Sunday, Tiger Woods made sports history when he stood over a two-foot putt on the 18th green.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JIM NANTZ: Many doubted we’d ever see it, but here it is.
(CHEERING)
NANTZ: The return to glory.
(CHEERING)
DAVIES: Woods’ fifth Masters title at age 43 followed a 10-year drought of major tournament victories and completed a remarkable comeback from a personal scandal that all but ruined his reputation and back surgery that left him unable to swing the club at all. For some perspective on Woods’ career and his achievement, we turn to Jeff Benedict. He’s the author, with Armen Keteyian, of a widely read biography published last year called “Tiger Woods.” It’s now out in paperback.
Well, Jeff Benedict, welcome to FRESH AIR. Tiger Woods dominated golf like nobody ever – like few people dominate anything, really. Give us a sense of how he was trained for this life and skill. How – you know, how young was he when he started learning golf?
JEFF BENEDICT: I think it’s fair to say Tiger was 2 years old when he really started to learn golf. He was 1 when he started watching his father play golf or practice golf in the garage. And that was a daily regimen, where he would sit there and watch his father putt. By the time he was 2, Tiger was putting and starting to practice and learn things with his dad. He was in golf all the time.
By the time Tiger’s 12 or 13, there’s some really intense training going on that goes beyond what most parents would deem appropriate. Earl would do things like – they were demeaning. I mean, he would call Tiger very demeaning names, names that I can’t use on the air. It was an attempt to put him down or break him down in a mental way and an emotional way while Tiger was practicing. It was intended to toughen him and really prepare him for what was ahead. They had a code word between the two of them. The word was enough. And Tiger was to use that word if his father ever pushed him too far. He never used that word.
DAVIES: His dad, Earl, was African-American. His mom, Kultida, was Thai. And Earl would sometimes yell racial epithets at Tiger. Was that to prepare him for a racist world that he would encounter?
BENEDICT: I think part of the reason he used those epithets was because Earl had a really good understanding of where his son was going. He knew that where Tiger was going was the country club set. When he was a young boy and a teenager – Tiger, that is – Earl was constantly looking for ways to help his son beat the country club kids who had all the advantages of wealth and socioeconomic status.
And so part of that, those racial epithets – yeah, he – that’s part of what’s factored into it. Tiger would be competing on golf courses as a teenager where there were no kids of color. There were no parents of color. There was just nobody of color at these clubs. And then this boy would walk out onto the course, and all eyes would be on him because he was – not only did he look differently than everybody else, but he was so much better than everybody else. And there’s a tremendous amount of pressure – emotional pressure that comes with that. And Earl was trying to put a shield or forcefield around his son that would enable him to cope with that when he reached the PGA tour.
DAVIES: When he joined the PGA Tour – there are a lot of ways to measure this – how good was he?
BENEDICT: He arrives like a comet. I mean, if you think about it, in 1997, he hasn’t been on the tour for a year yet, and he goes to the Masters and wins by a record margin. I mean, you’re talking about a boy basically, right? He’s just come out of college as a sophomore. And he doesn’t just win the Masters. He trashes the Masters. He completely annihilates the field. His driving distance off the tee is so much farther than everybody else. It’s a bit like watching a bionic man hit a golf ball. And everybody’s watching this going, this is the future. I mean, this kid’s just got here. You’re – everybody’s playing for second place. I mean, he – that’s how he arrived.
DAVIES: You know, I read in your book about that Masters in which he made history by setting course records and tournament records that – you know, a major golf tournament is 72 holes. The first nine holes, he played horribly. He would have been sent home except he turned it around after nine and refocused. This is remarkable.
BENEDICT: It is, and I think that that’s one of the reasons that to this day, Tiger Woods gives tremendous credit to his father. There is a bond between them. There’s a reason for that iconic moment at the end of that Masters where Earl and Tiger are embracing and crying into each other’s shoulders and expressing, I love you to each other. It’s – that was sort of the culmination of the 18 years of grinding, driving training between Earl and Tiger. And it paid off with that Masters.
It’s – that’s the role really of Earl that you saw come out in Tiger. He was there for that Masters. And frankly, he shouldn’t have been because Earl was ill, and he was – his doctor advised him not to go. But he went, and he had a role in helping Tiger turn it around mentally.
DAVIES: Tiger Woods had a remarkable career as a professional. I want to talk about, though, what his body went through. It’s interesting, you know? You see some golfers – and I play the game a little. And you see some golfers who have a nice, relaxed swing, and the ball just takes off like a rocket. But Tiger didn’t. I mean, every time he swung a club, even one of the shorter clubs, it was just an explosion of impact. Tell us a bit about what his body went through and the toll that it took on him – all the practice and play.
BENEDICT: I think that the best way to describe or differentiate Tiger’s – not only his swing but his approach to golf is this – that when he first joined the PGA Tour in ’96, the adjective that was used to describe his swing was violent. Violent is not a word you typically associate with golf. I mean, that’s a word for football or boxing. But Earl was all about weaponizing his son. When Tiger struck the ball, it was like an explosion. His high school girlfriend told us that the first time she witnessed Tiger drive a ball at a driving range, it felt and sounded like a rocket taking off.
Now, over time, his swing coach Butch Harmon was concerned that that violent torque of a swing on his back was going to have some negative consequences. They were actually trying early on to tone it down. Even his youth instructor was trying to get him to not swing so hard and so violently. But on the other hand, that was part of who he was and part of what made him great. But it did take a toll.
DAVIES: And he finally got – what? – spinal fusion surgery. What does that mean? What did it mean for him?
BENEDICT: The fourth and final back surgery that Tiger Woods had was a spinal fusion surgery. And, you know, there was a lot of question as to whether that would work, whether he’d be able to return. Most experts and prognosticators predicted that he would never play again.
The thing is, as you – everybody underestimates who this man is and how this man was made. And I’m talking more now about – not about how he was built physically, but I’m talking about how he was built mentally. And there’s things like determination and grit that Tiger possesses and to a degree that I think really separates him from everybody else. And I don’t just mean the other golfers on the PGA tour. I’m talking about athletes in general. He’s a rare world-class athlete that has grit and determination and a pain threshold that just – it’s unlike any athlete that I’ve seen or written about.
DAVIES: Jeff Benedict is the author with Armen Keteyian of the book “Tiger Woods.” It’s now out in paperback. We’ll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we’re speaking with Jeff Benedict. He is the author with Armen Keteyian of the biography “Tiger Woods,” which is now out in paperback.
His marriage exploded in a scandal in 2009 – turned out he’d had multiple extramarital affairs. And in general, it’s fair to say looking at this biography that he’s – was in many ways not the most admirable person. I will say I’d give some slack to people who get fame and wealth at a very young age. I mean, a lot of us do stupid things when we’re young, and we just don’t have the means and the attention for them to be so noticed. How much has he changed? What’s your sense of that? Is he different towards other players, fans, other relationships?
BENEDICT: I think he’s evolved. He’s evolved a lot over time. He’s in his 40s now. He’s been through more than – it’s hard to actually find someone on the planet that’s been through things comparable to Tiger because of the fame he had. So when he made the mistakes that he made, we all watched them in real time. And it was a colossal fall from grace. He was mimicked. He was mocked. He was criticized. He was made fun of. He was the butt of jokes on late night television. Where I think this changed was the way he dealt with that.
I’ve never seen a public figure respond to controversy the way he did. He faced the cameras. He answered the tough questions. He didn’t run and hide. He took it, and he took it in a way that I think impressed people. People might not have been impressed with what he did, but the way he responded to it, I think, was the beginning of a change.
And then you had that 10-year period from 2009 when he had the car accident until 10 years later where he was – went through all the injuries. And now what you’re seeing is he’s a father with children. He’s a super dedicated dad. He’s got his career back. He thought he’d never play again. Now he’s playing again. He’s got his health back and his mobility.
And I think he looks at everything differently. He looks at the game differently. He looks at life differently. You can see it. There’s a genuineness to the way he is engaged with people now. This is not an act. It’s not the nasty thing you saw 15 years ago when he was at the pinnacle of his game. What you’re seeing now is a guy, I think, who loves what he’s doing. To me, that potentially makes him more dangerous. As long as he stays healthy, he could be really hard to beat over the next few years.
DAVIES: So what he did last weekend, winning the Masters at age 43 after debilitating surgery and his – you know, the blow-up of his career – how big is this in the annals of sports?
BENEDICT: It could very well go down as the greatest comeback in the history of sports. What he came back from is unprecedented because of just how far he’d fallen. This wasn’t just, you know, a decent golfer who had some public humiliation. This was the greatest golfer of all time. This was one of the greatest athletes in history who had an incredibly precipitous fall that took him right out of the game. It turned his life upside down. And we all watched it. And then it culminated with a series of injuries that took him out of the sport entirely. People didn’t expect him to ever play again, let alone come back and do something like win the Masters.
The reason it’s doubly great is because this is a comeback story that transcends sports. We all know what’s happened to him in his private life because it played out so publicly. And so the message of Tiger’s life, I think, has become, you know, just because you’re down doesn’t necessarily mean you’re out. And that’s a message that resonates with a lot of people who may not even care about golf or sports in general.
I think that there’s a lot of people that have watched this. And the reason they’ve been inspired by it is because they got introduced to him after the scandal. And that’s when they realized, oh, this was the great golfer; look what’s happened to him. And now they see that he’s turned all that around, and he’s gotten it back.
DAVIES: Jeff Benedict, thanks so much for speaking with us.
BENEDICT: Thank you.
DAVIES: Jeff Benedict is the author with Armen Keteyian of the 2018 book “Tiger Woods.” It’s now out in paperback.
It’s baseball season, and on tomorrow’s show, we learn about fastballs, curveballs, screwballs and spitballs from New York Times national baseball writer Tyler Kepner. He talked to hundreds of pitchers about what they throw and how they try to get a mental edge over the hitters they face. His new book is “K: A History Of Baseball In Ten Pitches.” Join us.
(SOUNDBITE OF ANTONIO ADOLFO’S “MILESTONES”)
DAVIES: FRESH AIR’s executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our associate producer for digital media is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Thea Chaloner directed today’s show. For Terry Gross, I’m Dave Davies.
(SOUNDBITE OF ANTONIO ADOLFO’S “MILESTONES”)
Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
French Woman Sets Marathon Record Running In High Heels
Christelle Doyhambehere ran the race on a challenge from her partner, who dared her to run in her stylish footwear. She ran in just over six hours, beating that record by about an hour and half.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Good morning. I’m Steve Inskeep. A French woman prepared for a marathon. Christelle Doyhambehere taped her ankles, put on compression sleeves, running socks and 3-inch heels. France Bleu reports she did this on a challenge from her partner, who dared her to try running in her stylish footwear. She did and set a record. Yes, there’s a record for high-heeled marathon running. And when Doyhambehere ran in just over six hours, she beat that record by about an hour and a half.
Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
NHL Playoffs: Blue Jackets Sweep Lightning In 4 Games
The NHL playoff season is over for the Tampa Bay Lightning after four straight losses to the Columbus Blue Jackets. David Greene talks to Diana Nearhos of the Tampa Bay Times.
How Well Do Workplace Wellness Programs Work?
A large new study finds mixed results for the effectiveness of programs aimed at motivating healthful behavior — such as more exercise and better nutrition — among employees.
Erik Isakson/Getty Images/Tetra images RF
hide caption
toggle caption
Erik Isakson/Getty Images/Tetra images RF
Workplace wellness programs — efforts to get workers to lose weight, eat better, stress less and sleep more — are an $8 billion industry in the U.S.
Most large employers offer some type of wellness program, with growth fueled by incentives in the federal Affordable Care Act.
But no one has been sure they work. Various studies over the years have provided conflicting results, with some showing savings and health improvements while others say the efforts fall short.
Many studies, however, faced a number of limitations, such as failing to have a comparison group, or figuring out whether people who sign up for such wellness programs are somehow healthier or more motivated than those who do not.
Researchers from the University of Chicago and Harvard may have overcome some of these obstacles with one of the first large-scale studies to be peer-reviewed and employ a randomized controlled trial design. They published their findings Tuesday in the medical journal JAMA.
The scientists randomly assigned 20 BJ’s Wholesale Club outlets to offer a wellness program to all employees, then compared results with 140 stores that did not.
The big-box retailer employed nearly 33,000 workers across all 160 clubs during the test.
The wellness program consisted of asking participating workers to fill out a health risk questionnaire, have some medical tests, such as blood pressure and blood glucose, and take up to eight classes on topics such as nutrition and exercise.
After 18 months, it turned out that, yes, workers participating in the wellness programs self-reported healthier behavior than those not enrolled, such as exercising more or managing their weight better.
But the efforts did not result in differences in health measures, such as improved blood sugar or glucose levels, how much employers spent on health care or how often employees missed work. Their job performance and how long they stuck around in their jobs also seemed unaffected, the researchers say.
“The optimistic interpretation is there is no way we can get improvements in health or more efficient spending if we don’t first have changes in health behavior,” says Katherine Baicker, dean of the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, and one of the study’s authors. (Dr. Zirui Song, an assistant professor of health policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School, was its co-author.)
“But if employers are offering these programs in hopes that health spending and absenteeism will go down, this study should give them pause,” Baicker says.
The study comes amid widespread interest in wellness programs.
The Kaiser Family Foundation’s annual survey of employers found that 53 percent of small firms and 82 percent of large firms offer a program in at least one of these areas: smoking cessation, weight management, and behavioral or lifestyle change. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)
Some programs are simple, offering gift cards or other small incentives to fill out a health risk assessment; take a lunch-and-learn class; or join a gym or walking group. Others are far more invasive, asking employees to report on a variety of health-related questions and roll up their sleeves for blood tests.
A few employers offer financial incentives to workers who actually reduce their risk factors — lowering high blood pressure, for example, or reducing levels of bad cholesterol — or who make concerted efforts to participate in programs that might help them reduce these risk factors over time.
The Affordable Care Act allowed employers to offer financial incentives worth up to 30 percent of the cost of health insurance — that led some employers to entice workers with what could amount to hundreds or even thousands of dollars in discounted insurance premiums or reduced deductibles.
Such large financial incentives led to court challenges about whether those programs are truly voluntary. The result of such cases is still unclear — a judge has asked the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to revise the rules governing the programs, but those revisions are not expected to be published this year.
In the study reported in JAMA, the incentives were modest. Participants got small-dollar gift cards for taking wellness courses on topics such as nutrition, exercise, disease management and stress control. Total potential incentives averaged $250. About 35 percent of eligible employees at the 20 participating sites completed at least one module.
Results from those workers — including attendance and tenure data, their self-reported health assessment and results from lab blood tests — were specifically compared with similar reports from 20 primary comparison sites where workers were not offered the wellness gift cards and classes. Overall employment and health spending data from all worksites were included in the study.
Wellness program vendors say details matter when considering whether efforts will be successful.
Jim Pshock, founder and CEO of Bravo Wellness, says the incentives offered to BJ’s workers might not have been large enough to spur the kinds of big changes needed to affect health outcomes.
Amounts “of less than $400 generally incentivize things people were going to do anyway,” Pshock says. “It’s simply too small to get them to do things they weren’t already excited about.”
An accompanying editorial in JAMA notes that “traditional, broad-based programs like the one analyzed by Song and Baicker may lack the necessary intensity, duration, and focus on particular employee segments to generate significant effects over a short time horizon.”
In other words, don’t give up entirely on wellness efforts, but consider “more targeted approaches” that focus on specific workers who have higher risks, or on “health behaviors [that] may yield larger health and economic benefits,” the editorial suggests.
It could be, the study acknowledges, that 18 months isn’t enough time to track such savings. So, Baicker and Song also plan to publish three-year results once they are finalized.
Still, similar findings were recently reported by the University of Illinois, where individuals were randomly selected to be offered wellness programs. This study, published in 2018 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, concluded that the workplace wellness program did not reduce health care costs or change health behaviors.
In one interesting point, that study found that wellness-program participants were likely already healthier and more motivated, “thus a primary benefit of these programs to employers may be their potential to attract and retain healthy workers with low medical spending,” the authors write.
Everyone involved in studying or conducting wellness agrees on one thing: Changing behavior, and getting people motivated to participate at all, can be difficult.
Steven Aldana, CEO of WellSteps, a wellness program vendor, says that for the efforts to be successful, they must cut across many areas — from the food served in company cafeterias to including spouses or significant others in helping people quit smoking, eat better or exercise more.
“Behavior is more complicated than simply taking a few wellness modules,” Aldana said. “It’s a lifestyle matrix or pattern you have to adopt.”
Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent, nonprofit program of the Kaiser Family Foundation. KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
Tiger Woods Makes Remarkable Return With Fifth Masters Win
NPR’s Ailsa Chang speaks with Yahoo sports columnist Dan Wetzel about Tiger Woods’ comeback as a person and player, following his fifth Masters win on Sunday.
Tiger Woods Rises Again — And Sponsors Are Celebrating His Resilience
Tiger Woods celebrates after making his putt on the 18th green to win the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club on Sunday in Augusta, Georgia.
Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
Tiger Woods’ historic comeback victory Sunday at the The Masters Tournament shows the enduring star — and earning — power of a player once dropped by many sponsors because of his problems on and off the golf course.
“It’s crazy to think a 43-year-old who has experienced every high and every low and has just won his 15th major …. is chasing the same dream as a 3-year-old,” a new Nike ad says.
President Trump announced Monday that he will award Woods the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, “because of his incredible Success & Comeback in Sports (Golf) and, more importantly, LIFE.”
At 43, Woods is the second-oldest winner of the Masters. In 1986 Jack Nicklaus won The Masters for a sixth time when he was 46.
And after Woods’ momentous victory Sunday, multiple sponsors are celebrating his resilience. At the end of the Nike ad, a very young Woods is seen on camera saying: “I’m going to beat Jack Nicklaus.”
Woods now has 15 major wins, compared to 18 for Nicklaus. “I felt for a long time that he was going to win again. … He’s got me shaking in my boots, guys,” Nicklaus told the Golf Channel after Tiger’s victory.
TaylorMade, a golf club manufacturer and another sponsor of Woods, is promoting the hashtag “#NeverDone” – a reference to the player’s longevity.
Tiger last won the Masters Tournament in 2005 – the longest period ever between wins in that tournament. Since then, he’s gone through a high-profile sex scandal and major injuries.
Roaring back.#themasters pic.twitter.com/nlTwxWJW8X
— Masters Tournament (@TheMasters) April 14, 2019
“I had serious doubts after what transpired a few years ago. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t lay down, I really couldn’t do much of anything,” he told reporters. “Luckily I had the procedure on my back, which gave me a chance at having a normal life. … The body’s not the same as it was a long time ago, but I still have good hands.”
According to Forbes, in 2009 he brought in $105 in endorsements and appearance fees, compared to $37 million in 2017. As Bloomberg noted, many top sponsors such as AT&T, Accenture, Gillette, Gatorade ended their relationships with him following the scandals. TaylorMade is a newer sponsor, as is golf ball manufacturer Bridgestone Golf and drink company Monster Energy.
But Nike, which has been a sponsor since 1996, has stuck by him. And that has turned out to be lucrative.
According to sponsorship analytics firm Apex Marketing Group, the brand exposure that Nike got from Woods during the final round of this tournament was worth more than $22.5 million. They calculated that branding on his bag from Monster Energy and on his golf balls from Bridgestone Golf was also worth more than $1 million total.
The amount of exposure that Woods produced for Nike in the final round is nearly double the $12 million that Apex estimates Nike gained last year from Masters winner Patrick Reed.
That’s largely due to the intense focus the TV broadcast placed on Woods, said Apex president Eric Smallwood. “Pretty much every hole, every time he hit the ball, they were showing him … or the Nike logo,” he told NPR.
Nike has drawn down its relationship with Woods over the years – now concentrating on his apparel rather than balls or clubs.
But Smallwood doesn’t see the company ever dropping him. “I think Nike will stick with him until he stops playing golf, in some capacity. I don’t foresee that ever going away,” he says.
From a branding perspective, he says, Woods’ story has obvious appeal. “This is coming back from not even playing and winning the Masters. It’s got a lot of good story lines to it,” he says, that brands would want to hold onto.
Woods won his first Masters in 1997.
Dave Martin/Associated Press
hide caption
toggle caption
Dave Martin/Associated Press
Tournament officials were eagerly touting the moment: “No man in golf has ever been the subject of more interest or speculation than has Tiger Woods. No man in the game has inspired more opinion, and his story is well known.”
A Forbes analysis asks, now that Tiger is on top again, how his branding might change:
“Maybe the most interesting question involving the return of Woods is this: Who will become the first major brand to take a risk on him? And will that open the door to getting Tiger back on top in terms of endorsement deals?”
Woods himself appears introspective. After his first-ever Masters win in 1997, he hugged his father, who died in 2006. This year, he shared an emotional hug with his two children and his mother. He reflected on how this win could change how his kids see him and his place in the professional golf.
“I think the kids are starting to understand how much this game means to me and some of the things I’ve done in the game. Prior to this comeback, they only knew that golf caused me a lot of pain,” Woods told reporters. “We’re creating new memories for them.”
Tiger Woods Is 1 Victory From Tying Jack Nicklaus’ Masters Record
Tiger Woods won his fifth Masters title on Sunday, marking an incredible comeback from injury and personal hardship that ended a nearly 11-year championship drought.
Tiger Woods Wins 2019 Masters
In a surprise comeback, Tiger Woods wins his first major title in more than a decade.