EA sports making HUGE move?

[smerlus]

Report: EA set to get exclusive NFL player rights?

[UPDATE] Well-respected sports-industry magazine says the game giant is close to a billion-dollar deal. However, ESPNvideogames.com reps claim to have debunked the story as false.
Two weeks ago, The Sports Business Journal, one of the most respected trade journals of the athletic entertainment business, revealed the identity of Madden NFL 2005 cover athlete Ray Lewis several days before EA Sports announced it.

Now it appears they might have broken one of biggest sports-licensing stories in the game industry's history.

The May 3 issue of the Journal contained a story with the headline "EA set to pay Players Inc. $1 billion." According to the article, Electronic Arts is in final negotiations with Players Inc., the NFL Players' Association marketing arm, to exclusively license all NFL player rights for the next four years. The Journal set the price tag of the deal at $250 million each year, which EA would pay Players Inc.; in other words, a literal billion-dollar contract.

Given the large sums reportedly at stake, the exclusivity of the EA/NLFPA deal would be almost certainly strict. If that turns out to be the case, no non-EA Sports game could license NFL player likenesses--an almost certainly fatal blow to the Madden series' rivals, such as ESPN NFL Football.

When provided with excerpts from the article by GameSpot, EA Sports representatives promised to pass them along to "someone who can answer your questions." As of press time, no official confirmation or denial of the EA/NLFPA negotiations had been given by EA.

While the The Sports Business Journal broke the story, it was, ironically, reprinted in the magazine ESPN. This prompted a moderator at ESPNvideogames.com to call the NFLPA. According to the moderator, NFLPA reps denied that anything other than "normal" licensing deals were in play. Attempts to contact the NFLPA directly were unsuccessful as of press time.

GameSpot will have more details on this developing story as they become available.

source: gamespot.com

[Entreri117]

Whoa...that is a huge move.

If EA gets those rights (which I don't think they will), they will OWN that part of the game industry.

[Montana00]

I think its a bad move. Very bad move. Heres my reasoning.

Madden owns the football genre. Anyone disagree? i honestly dont think any nfl game comes close. Espn is a distant second in sales. So yea if they got the rights then those espn people would come to madden, but for a billion dollars?

i honestly think its not worth it to get espns audience. Money not well spent.

[Entreri117]

I think its a bad move. Very bad move. Heres my reasoning.

Madden owns the football genre. Anyone disagree? i honestly dont think any nfl game comes close. Espn is a distant second in sales. So yea if they got the rights then those espn people would come to madden, but for a billion dollars?

i honestly think its not worth it to get espns audience. Money not well spent.

Yeah, I kinda agree.  Though ESPN was a pretty solid game, Madden blows it away IMO.

AND NOW MADDEN IS COMING TO XBOX LIVE...DEFINITLY MONEY WASTED.

[Montana00]

im waiting to see what owner mode has new to it i loved it last year

[eS El Duque]

Atm MAdden has the best football games...but i remember when Sega had its own football series for the dreamcast, they were the best football games i've ever played...too bad dreamcast died

[7even]

fuck EA. they just buy everything they need and then they can make whack-ass games anybody will buy nevertheless since there aint no other games out. fuck them.

[On The Edge of Insanity]

Atm MAdden has the best football games...but i remember when Sega had its own football series for the dreamcast, they were the best football games i've ever played...too bad dreamcast died

Um, thats what the ESPN NFL games are the sequels of. And as far as I'm concerned their games are much better than Madden.

[Montana00]

fuck EA. they just buy everything they need and then they can make whack-ass games anybody will buy nevertheless since there aint no other games out. fuck them.

Your fucking joking ea makes some of the coolest games around. ill name tons.

NBA Live 2004 is in my opinion the best nba game around (espn had better graphics). Ask any football fan. Madden is thee best football game ever made.

Needfor speed underground is the best street racing game. I hate lord of the rings, but the lord of the rings game are sooo awesome. Just because they are the biggest game company doesnt mean they suck

[On The Edge of Insanity]

fuck EA. they just buy everything they need and then they can make whack-ass games anybody will buy nevertheless since there aint no other games out. fuck them.

Your fucking joking ea makes some of the coolest games around. ill name tons.

NBA Live 2004 is in my opinion the best nba game around (espn had better graphics). Ask any football fan. Madden is thee best football game ever made.

Needfor speed underground is the best street racing game. I hate lord of the rings, but the lord of the rings game are sooo awesome. Just because they are the biggest game company doesnt mean they suck

Well I would say that ESPN NBA 2K4 was a lot better than Nba Live, it just flowed a hell of a lot better, and there was a lot more of a weighty feeling to it. You actually feel in NBA2K4 that there is some resistance when going in for a layup or dunk, whereas on NBA Live people just seem to jump parallel to you and have no effect on your own trajectory.

Project Gotham Racing 2 is a million miles ahead of NFS:Underground, once you finish tuning your car in NFS the most fun part of the game is over, cause the handiling of the cars in races is horrible, and for me makes it almost unplayable.

I'm not gonna even comment on the LOTR games, I played for amount five mins and got bored, just seemed to be a case of doing the same thing over and over again.

Oh, and while I'm on a rant, Pro Evolution Soccer is 100x the game FIFA will ever be.

[7even]

im with waitin for the dj on this one, I own project gotham and espn basketball... and if EA takes finally over everything  it just sucks, since they will stick to one concept and wont make that great games either, cause they know everybody will buy their games anyway.

look at microsoft.

[smerlus]

i don't like EA as a developer because i'm not into sports games that much.... i do like the EA sports BIG games though

but as a publisher EA is pretty good, i think i own more EA published games than any other publisher

[Montana00]

Games are a matter of taste. i thought project gotham racing sucks. its just taste.

but the thread is about madden. And does anyone disagree with me that Madden is the best nfl game ever?

[smerlus]

i always liked the nfl 2k's better

[Montana00]

i used to too, but i bought madden 2004 by a recommendation, and never looked back