Why fans consider cheating on field worse than infidelity with spouse

A new study has revealed that fans and sponsors such as Nike dropped Lance Armstrong but stayed loyal to Tiger Woods because Armstrong's doping scandal took place on the field, unlike Wood's off-the-field extramarital affairs.

The study at University of Michigan suggests that when fans and consumers can separate an athlete's immoral behavior from their athletic performance, they're much more forgiving than if the bad behavior could impact athletic performance or the outcome of the game.

Lance Armstrong's doping scandal was viewed as performance-related, a reasoning strategy called moral coupling, because of which his career suffered tremendously and Nike eventually dropped him, said researcher Dae Hee Kwak.

Tiger Woods' transgression wasn't performance-related and fans and consumers could more easily separate Woods' extramarital affairs from his athletic performance, the researchers said. They rationalized the behavior, moral rationalization, or deemed it irrelevant to the game, called moral decoupling. Woods' career didn't suffer nearly as much and Nike continued its sponsorship and even developed ads to help Woods resuscitate his image.

Kwak said that based on their findings, one could argue that based on consumers' views, Nike's decision was a smart one.

Kwak added that sponsors can monitor how consumers view the transgression. They could look at social media, and also conduct surveys or focus groups to see if consumers tend to separate or integrate judgments of performance and morality and based on their target consumers' views, marketers can determine when they should continue or discontinue their relationship with the athletes in trouble.

The study is published in the Journal of Business Ethics.