Kiplinger's published a rather interesting article last week, looking at the possibility that playing poker can make you a better investor.

The article looks at the psychological issues that are present in both investing and gambling decisions. Kiplinger's interviewed Andrew Lo, the director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laboratory for Financial Engineering (wow), who is considered "one of the leaders in the field of behavioral finance." Lo goes farther than saying that the psychological issues driving investing and gambling decisions are similar; he contends that these issues are "identical."

Rough few days for NBC, right? First, you have the whole Jay Leno prime-time disaster (which many experts and nonexperts saw coming); now you have yesterday's revelation from Dick Ebersol (chairman of NBC's sports division) that the Winter Olympics from Vancouver will actually lose money for NBC.

Ebersol noted that the cost of the broadcast rights for the games will exceed the company's advertising sales. Advertising sales slumped in the middle of 2009 and, although sales have picked up in the past four months, NBC is going to lose money thanks to the economic slowdown.

While official ratings numbers from Thursday's national championship game between the Texas Longhorn and Alabama Crimson Tide football teams have yet to be released, I have a bad feeling that they will not be as good as ESPN hopes. Raise your hand if you tuned out after the Crimson Tide rolled to a 24-6 first-half lead and Texas was struggling with a freshman back-up quarterback at the helm. I would have my hand up right now, but it is awfully tough to type with one hand.

While the game promised to be good at the start, and actually had a relatively decent ending (from what I hear, unless you think this was the highlight of the night), I have a feeling that we will find out that the ratings for this game were lower than past couple of years. I know that I checked in on the game first thing this morning, only to find out that the finish was a bit closer than I expected, but I went to bed last night not worried that I was missing the last half of the BCS (or is it BS?) championship game.

Haven't had enough Tiger Woods news lately? Are you absolutely obsessed with the comings and goings of Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and their respective love lives? Well, the newest entrant into the world of sports reporting may keep you up to date on just that, and more. TMZ has become a major name in the world of celebrity news, and is now expanding its reach into the world of sports.

The main reason for this move is that TMZ will no longer be tied to AOL (AOL), which should make it easier for Harvey Levin to introduce a sports-related Internet site. The celeb happenings of the past year have helped to cement the validity of TMZ, but advertising sales are on pace to come in $10 million shy of a year ago. TMZ itself has evolved from a scoffed-at website that paid for tips and hints to major news stories to an "effective news-gathering operation of a certain kind" according to Time Warner (TWX). TMZ came into its own this year, with the site's popularity exploding thanks to its report that Michael Jackson passed, which came in an hour before the "most mainstream news organizations."

Golf Digest has become the latest partner to cut ties with embattled golf icon Tiger Woods, announcing today that it will suspend its monthly instructional column that bears Woods' name.

"Golf Digest has had a long-standing relationship with Tiger Woods to provide instructional articles for the magazine, and we do not have any plans to change that," Golf Digest spokesman Bret Hopman said in a statement provided to CNBC. "We respect Tiger's decision to take a break from professional golf and focus on his family; Tiger's bylined instructional articles will not be published during his time away from the game."

Time to piggyback on my thoughts about Tiger Woods potentially quitting golf. A statement on Tiger's personal website announced that the world's greatest golfer is going to take "an indefinite break from professional golf." Tiger begins the statement by expressing awareness of the "disappointment and hurt that my infidelity has cause to so many people, most of all my wife and children."

This is the first time that Tiger has really spoken since the car crash, which I feel was a bit of a public relations mistake. His silence allowed the public and tabloids to assume Tiger's guilt before he spoke. Of course, it doesn't matter now, as Tiger admitted to "infidelity," confirming what many have theorized. Tiger added that "It may not be possible to repair the damage I've done, but I want to do my best to try."

I really thought that last week was the last time I was going to address Tiger Woods ... I guess I was wrong. Reports are surfacing (in UK's The Sun) that Elin has told Tiger that he needs to quit golf. Well, well, well, if (and that is a big if) this is true, we may find out exactly how much of a family man Tiger is.

The coverage that this whole mess has received is more than Michael Jackson, and it doesn't look like it is going to stop any time soon. Of course, the fact that Tiger couldn't keep the driver in the bag is the reason that the whole situation has gone to H-E-double hockey sticks in a handbasket; so he has to live with the consequences. He wants privacy, but that just ain't going to happen Tiger, especially not during the Internet age.

Officials for Gatorade, a division of PepsiCo, Inc. (PEP), officials told CNBC today that it will discontinue its "Tiger Woods"-branded line of Focus Gatorade products.

But don't worry. It has absolutely nothing at all to do with the whole SUV crashing/golf club beating/multiple mistresses scandal. In a statement to CNBC, the company noted that "We decided several months ago to discontinue Gatorade Tiger Focus along with some other products to make room for our planned series of innovative products in 2010. We hope to share more about our 2010 plans soon."

The Tiger Woods drama has ballooned since I last looked at the situation. Of course, I focused a tad more on the situation for Tiger's sponsors. I want to continue that look, but I want to look at why Tiger's sponsors will stand by him, why we are so fascinated by the situation, and the difference between Tiger and Michael Phelps (a.k.a. Aquaman).

First things first, this will not impact Tiger's relationship with any of his sponsors. No matter what you think happened or why the situation happened, Tiger was cited for a traffic violation and will pay the fine with money out of his change jar. Was his act immoral? Yes. Was the act inexcusable? Yes. Is the act something he will be reminded of publicly (and privately) on a near daily basis? Yes. Should his sponsors jump ship and run? No.

Okay, so everyone is weighing on the Tiger Woods incident over the holiday weekend. As a "business of sports blogger," it's my turn to toss in my two cents. First things first, whatever you think happened early on Friday morning, Tiger has asked for privacy and respect, so I will not participate in the rumor-mongering taking place across the Internet.

What is interesting is that people are forgetting to look at what this could do for his biggest sponsor, Nike (NKE). Now, I am not saying that any stock trouble that Nike may experience is the fault of the little incident between (or involving) Tiger and Mrs. Tiger, but the company will be performing a bit of damage control, just as Tiger and crew have.

You know, it figures that this would be the year that I give up my Bengals season tickets. I suffered through three years of horrid football and decided that I was not going to renew my tickets for financial reasons or as a protest against the team's (mis)management in the past 19 years.

That said, one reason that did not attribute to my giving up the tickets was the NFL's new tailgating rules. In an article Darren Rovell put on Twitter this morning (featured in USAToday), a New York Jets fan says that the tailgating rules (that limit tailgating to 3.5 hours before kickoff) may be the "final nail" that forces him to give up his season tickets. The new tailgating rules are supposed to help "crack down on drunken and disruptive fans" by limiting the time fans can tailgate.

You all know that I love to cover the business of sports, so I was particularly interested when stories about Mangini and Quinn crossed my Twitter feed.

Here is the situation: the Cleveland Browns have benched quarterback Derek Anderson in favor of Brady Quinn for the Browns' upcoming Monday Night tilt against the Baltimore Ravens. Thing is, this is the second quarterback benching new head coach Eric Mangini has made -- he benched Quinn in week three in favor of Anderson. I am not going to discuss the merit of either of the starting quarterbacks (as neither has done well), but I want to take a look at the idea that Brady Quinn may have been benched in week three so the Browns wouldn't have to pay the escalators built in to Quinn's contract.

I promised myself that I wasn't going to give Nike (NKE) the publicity that it wants with its new rivalry uniforms. You see, the company has decided that 10 colleges will wear specially designed uniforms for their big rivalry games this year, assigning the slogan "Prepare for Combat" to the program.

For example, The Ohio State University will wear "retro-inspired" uniforms when it takes the field against that team from up north (Michigan). I was worried when I heard that Nike was designing this uniform; Ohio State doesn't do alternate uniforms -- they never have. Honestly, it isn't all that bad; the jersey leaves a little to be desired, but perhaps that is just me.

An interesting situation developed this week in Florida, where Heir Jordan (Michael's son Marcus) cost the University of Central Florida (UCF) its $3 million sponsorship with Adidas. Marcus felt it necessary to wear Nike (NYSE: NKE) basketball shoes, since they were his father's Nike Air Jordans.

Jordan took to the court in an all-white pair of Nike Air Jordans, which differed from the school's normal black-and-white Adidas basketball shoes. Jordan wore ankle braces with the Adidas logo displayed, but this was a cursory move made to placate Adidas. In fact, the move may have been made so he could say that he was wearing Adidas, just not the shoes. Quite honestly, there is a little soap opera surrounding the situation, so let's take a deeper look.

Forbes reports that Tiger Woods is now the first athlete in history to earn $1 billion over the course of a career.

Not bad for a 33-year old who's still in the prime of his career. According to Forbes, he passed the $1billion mark when he earned $10 million for winning the FedEx Cup last week. It might be a mistake to put too much emphasis on the Forbes calculation since a huge chunk of Woods' earnings come from endorsement deals where financial terms are not disclosed. His career earnings on the PGA Tour are now up to $92,862,539, to be exact.