On December 16, an Associated Press panel named Tiger Woods the "athlete of the decade." Since turning pro in 1997, Woods has enjoyed phenomenal success and unprecedented media adulation. Until recently, that is.

After winning the 2008 U.S. Open, Woods took a break from golf to recover from a serious knee injury. He returned in 2009 but failed to win any of this year's four major championships. Then came the events of Thanksgiving weekend. I won't rehash that story in this space; if you've read this far, you know what I'm talking about.

On December 9, Woods released a statement saying he would take an "indefinite leave" from golf to focus on his personal affairs. There's no way to know when – or if – Woods will return. Woods certainly has the financial resources to live the rest of his life in seclusion. Nothing compels him to return to the public eye.

If he doesn't return, the sports press that drove him into seclusion will have shot itself in the collective foot. The press needs Woods; he doesn't need them. The press thinks just the opposite, of course, and that's the subject I will address here.

Professionals vs. Consumers

Woods isn't the first professional athlete to seek asylum from the press. Steve Carlton was a Hall of Fame pitcher, primarily with the Philadelphia Phillies. In a 24-year career, Carlton won 329 games and four Cy Young Awards, and he currently sits fourth on Major League Baseball's all-time strikeouts list.

One thing Carlton did not do during his playing days was talk to the press. Carlton had a poor season in 1973, and the local press responded by mocking what they deemed his unusual training methods. Carlton remained largely silent for the remainder of his career. He later said it was on the advice of a psychiatrist who told him to eliminate "negative influences" from his life.

Baseball scholar Bill James, writing in his 2001 Historical Baseball Abstract, said Carlton "embodied the cultural rift between sportswriters and players which became manifest in the 1970s." James saw the Carlton-sportswriter feud as emblematic of a larger (and troubling) economic phenomenon:

After World War II newspapermen were caught by the fever of professionalism which was then gripping the nation. Cops became police officers, nurses became health care practitioners, garbage men became sanitation workers. Newspapermen were no longer content to be newspapermen; by the late 1960s they had become journalists.

At the same time, baseball players were getting unionized, and emerging as professional athletes. Now, I don't know where you stand on "professionalism," but I think professionalism ranks with socialism, psychology, and twice-baked potatoes as the worst ideas of the twentieth century. Cops become police officers, but the crime rate soared. Professionalism in law enforcement has brought us the O.J. Simpson case in lieu of justice. Professionalism in education has given us teachers who know how to administer sophisticated evaluative interests, but simply don't have time to deal with the kids who can't read.

We would all be better off if the principle of civilian control of the military was extended to civilian control of the judicial system, civilian control of the schools, civilian control of the police force, and civilian control of the medical profession.

Professionalism represents a separation of the consumer market from the professional market. The consumer market values serving customers. The professional market values its social (or political) position.

For the last twelve years, the consumer and professional markets shared the same objectives with respect to Tiger Woods. Consumers flocked to see Woods dominate golf tournaments, and professionals rode the wave. Talking Tiger raised the professionals' own profile and social value.

The downside was that Woods himself remained an inaccessible, private person. He didn't cultivate personal relationships with the press. Other sports superstars, such as Michael Jordan, exchanged access for privacy by maintaining a protective layer of media dependents.

Professional journalists require access and sources to survive. Access is their currency. Woods benefited in the short term by cutting off the press, but that decision had consequences that are now painfully apparent. The professional journalists now consider every aspect of Woods's personal life – including any unfounded rumors – as fair game.

Some complain that "professional" journalists need to adhere to a code of ethics. I recently had this debate with law professor Rick Karcher – another "professional" – who said that government courts must decide what personal subjects should be off-limits to the press. That misses the boat completely. Professionalism is the cause of the present situation, not the solution. The only valid rule of journalistic ethics is the one Woods violated: Thou shalt not deny the press access.

The problem, however, is that the consumer market – the fans of Woods and golf – don't care about any of this. Consumers want to see Tiger play golf. Consumers don't care about a Washington Post reporter who's bitter that Woods wouldn't give him an interview for one of his books.

That's not to deny there's a consumer market for gossip. Indeed, publications like that National Inquirer and TMZ.comdiscovered and reported Woods's personal indiscretions long before the professional journalists did. The difference is the tabloid reporters don't require the same high level of capital and resources as, say, ESPN or the New York Times. Tabloids serve the consumer market, and as such they do so more efficiently than the professional market.

Of course, the professionals blame their failings on consumers. Dan Le Batard, a longtime Miami Herald columnist and radio commentator, wrote that consumers – and capitalism – were responsible for the shameful actions of his media colleagues:

[W]hat has happened to politicians and celebrities since has now spilled with force into the playpen for the first time, as The National Enquirer and TMZ suddenly realize how much money there is to be made by disgracing athletes, and the cattle media are forced by a public's insatiable appetite to moo toward the Tiger trough.

If the consumer market for celebrity destruction were as large and insatiable as Le Batard suggests, then Woods' personal life would not have escaped scrutiny for over a decade. Leonard Shapiro, the Washington Post's senior golf writer (and sports media critic) noted in his own column that he and his fellow elite journalists completely missed the signs:

I'm stunned, and maybe that's why I've also been feeling somewhat uneasy ever since Woods's run-in with a fire hydrant on Nov. 27 became public. Plainly put, I'm also a little embarrassed that I did not have a clue about Woods's bizarre double life in what has become one of the most shocking free-falls from grace in the history of sports.

The truth is that neither a depraved public nor the laws of economics forced the media into its current frenzy. The sudden increase in demand for Woods gossip is coming entirely from the professional market, not the consumer market, and it's driven by several factors: (1) A decade of pent-up resentment against Woods for not being more accessible; (2) Woods' relatively unsuccessful 2009 season; and (3) the inciting incident occurred during the slowest part of the news cycle – a holiday weekend – and the ongoing gossip provides convenient filler for a normally dead December.

The Tiger "Bubble"

As of this writing, the New York Post has run a Tiger Woods story on its front page for nineteen consecutive days. The Post also loses money every single year. These aren't completely unrelated phenomena. As noted above, consumer-driven gossip publications can be profitable. The Post, however, maintains the infrastructure of a daily circulation newspaper. It's an economically inefficient means of discussing a man's sex life.

The Post is owned by News Corporation, the Rupert Murdoch-led media conglomerate. Murdoch doesn't expect the Post to be profitable. He has the Wall Street Journal for that. The Post serves the professional market; it furthers the social position of Murdoch's empire in elite New York circles.

In any industry, social standing drives the professional market. There's a tendency towards over-specialization. (Just look at law and medicine.) Value is assigned to hype rather then productivity.

When the Woods story exploded, two of ESPN's highest paid pundits, Bill Simmons and Rick Reilly, moved quickly to maintain the hype level. Simmons proclaimed Woods' exploits the "story of the decade," with just days to spare. Reilly – who was lured from his lofty columnist's perch atSports Illustrated with a two million dollar per year contract – went on multiple ESPN outlets to lecture Woods about his moral failings and offered detailed instructions on how one of the world's most successful men could rehabilitate his standing in the media's (er, public's) eye. The first thing Reilly demanded was that Woods stop playing golf.

Now, given a choice, consumers would overwhelmingly choose to see Woods play golf over watching Reilly pontificate on ESPN. But as we've seen, the professional and consumer markets value different things. Reilly isn’t paid two million dollars to satisfy consumers; he's paid to provide hype-and-cover for other professional journalists who want to talk ad nauseamabout the Woods scandal.

Ultimately, the professional market creates a bubble – not unlike a Fed-induced credit bubble – in an attempt to separate itself entirely from the consumer market. But it can only go so far. Without the underlying consumer demand, professionals risk total irrelevancy. We've already seen this happen with newspapers and print media (which is why old-media types like Reilly jumped to newer media like ESPN).

What's unique here is that one person – Tiger Woods – can literally burst the bubble. If Woods never returns to golf – or if he returns but ceases to be a championship player, which isn't unprecedented in golf – consumer demand will collapse. Individual consumers won't disappear, of course; they'll just consume other products.

It's the professional market that will be left scrambling. Turning against Woods is a short-term strategy designed to assert the professional market's social standing over a "rogue" athlete. But if the bubble bursts, media conglomerates might suddenly question the long-term value of, say, the two-million-dollar-per-year pundit who helped wreck Woods' career.

Conclusion

Bill James observed nearly a decade ago, "The Internet has undermined professionalism in journalism which is a good thing." This seems counterintuitive to those who blame the Internet for fueling the current Tiger-mania. But the Internet simply provides a set of tools. Individuals drive markets, not machines.

Professionalism, James said, represents a type of "organized selfishness." It's a mechanism that allows individuals to maintain social standing irrespective of their talent or productivity. The "Tiger Bubble" is just the most recent sports story – after steroids, the Duke lacrosse hoax, et al. – to expose the poor judgment of "professional" journalists, and the extent to which the professional and consumer markets are disconnected. Hopefully, this malinvestment can be corrected once the bubble bursts.

(Originally published at LewRockwell.com)