This paper explores how a sports superstar’s popularity aged by utilizing 28 years of Nielsen television viewer data for the Professional Golf Association’s major events (i.e., the Masters, U.S. Open, PGA Championship, and the British Open; 1995–2022). Tiger Woods’ major career has spanned this precise time frame, as his first major event was the 1995 Masters and his last major in which he made the cut was the 2022 Masters (at the time of this writing). Thus, we are able to specifically examine how this singular superstar has aged in terms of popularity over an extended time frame. Given that golf is an individual sport in which there are no externality effects from teammates that might confound the analysis, our current setting provides an ideal natural experiment where we can simultaneously account for superstar effects relating to participation, performance, and longevity. Our results suggest that Woods was most popular at the beginning of his career, and that, after controlling for productivity and other relevant factors, his popularity has subsequently waned. Even though Tiger Woods remains the most popular golfer in the world, his impact on viewership has continued to lessen as his career has progressed.

中文翻译：

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老年巨星人气的经济学：泰格·伍兹的案例

本文利用尼尔森职业高尔夫协会重大赛事（即美国大师赛、美国公开赛、PGA 锦标赛和英国公开赛；1995-2022 年）28 年的电视观众数据，探讨了体育巨星的受欢迎程度如何变化。泰格·伍兹的主要职业生涯跨越了这个精确的时间范围，因为他的第一个主要赛事是 1995 年大师赛，而他晋级的最后一个主要赛事是 2022 年大师赛（在撰写本文时）。因此，我们能够专门研究这位非凡的超级巨星在较长时间内的受欢迎程度是如何变老的。鉴于高尔夫是一项个人运动，队友不会产生可能混淆分析的外部效应，我们当前的设置提供了一个理想的自然实验，我们可以同时考虑与参与、表现和寿命相关的超级巨星效应。我们的结果表明，伍兹在职业生涯初期最受欢迎，在控制生产力和其他相关因素后，他的受欢迎程度随后下降。尽管泰格·伍兹仍然是世界上最受欢迎的高尔夫球手，但随着他职业生涯的进步，他对收视率的影响持续减弱。