In the immortal words of Dan Hicks, “Expect anything different?”

When Tiger Woods’ agent, Mark Steinberg, confirmed to the media on Wednesday that Nike had re-upped (for an undisclosed dollar amount and length) its sponsorship agreement with Woods, the reaction was decidedly drama-free.

Obviously, it’s big news any time a sport’s biggest athlete signs a new endorsement deal, especially one as lucrative as Woods’ surely is, but did anybody really expect Woods to continue his march toward history emblazoned in anything other than his signature swoosh?

No other golfer is as synonymous with one of his sponsors as Woods is with Nike. From the moment he signed with the company when he turned pro in 1996, the two have ridden the ups-and-downs of Woods’ career as an inseparable tandem.

The Swoosh was there for (and capitalized on) the highs associated with 14 major championships and 78 PGA Tour wins, but more importantly (to Woods and his team) the Swoosh was there for the lows, when nobody else was. Once one of the most marketable athletes in the world, Woods found many of his multi-million dollar sponsors (Gatorade, Gillette, AT&T, Accenture) seeking to end their relationship with him following the much publicized 2009 scandal, but not Nike — the Swoosh never wavered.

Love it or hate it, that’s how Nike does business. They “believe in the athlete,” but not necessarily the man or women that exists behind that athletic façade. Heck, they even spelled it out for us in plain English. Anybody remember this commercial?

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Where other companies get queasy at the prospect of being associated with an athlete of questionable character, Nike sees it as a marketing opportunity. In the business of advertising — where turning heads is paramount — Nike has caused its fair share of consumer whiplash by attacking these issues head-on.

In some cases, we’ve seen this brashness work out poorly for Nike. Most notably in this notorious 2001 spot, where the company throws its full support behind Lance Armstrong’s ill-fated innocence campaign:

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Whereas with Woods, one could argue that it was because, and not in spite, of the uniquely bold way in which Nike choose to reintroduce a post-scandal Woods — having him stare unflinchingly at the camera, while his deceased father’s voice performs a ghostly soliloquy filled with questions and dripping with disappointment — that some members of the consumer audience forgave him as quickly as they did:

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However, despite that grand re-entrance, it did seem like Nike became a little bit more careful in the way in which it marketed Woods for the first couple years following the scandal. Gone were the days of Woods’ omnipresence, instead of being the lone star in the solar system he shrunk into part of the constellation. As Woods slipped from view, Nike start pumping guys like Paul Casey, Charl Schwartzel and Anthony Kim, hoping that their stretches of good to great play could carry the Swoosh while Woods rebounded.

You see, while Nike is many things both good and bad, the one thing it is not (as its namesake implies) is a loser. While Woods was still wearing the same Nike clothes and swinging the same Nike clubs, he wasn’t doing the one thing that made him most valuable to the company: winning.

Obviously Woods has rebounded in a big way since then, winning seven official events over the last two years, and that’s why you’ve started to see him pop up more frequently in your magazines and television sets. He’s been a part of big campaigns for his new athletically inspired shoes in both 2012 and 2013, and helped Nike push its new Covert driver even though he eschewed it until this week. And he even aided the company by appearing in the ad to welcome the man Nike ordained destined to dispose of him in the future, Rory McIlroy. The fact is, now that Woods is winning again, it’s clear that Nike is able to utilize him more and in doing so they can attempt to further eradicate the scandal from the public consciousness.

The two parties agreeing on a new sponsorship deal should not come as a surprise, but how Nike chooses to utilize Woods during the duration of that deal might. If Woods’ major drought continues, his injuries continue to pile up and he finally decides to let someone else win at Doral, Bay Hill, The Memorial and Firestone, then we could witness the rapid succession of McIlroy, but I’m not betting on it. Woods has shown he still has a lot left in the tank and if he can somehow breakthrough this week at Muirfield, then his comeback will officially be complete.

In other words, Woods would do well to heed the controversial advice that him and his sponsor seem to wholeheartedly agree on: “Winning takes care of everything.”