Madden Videogames - The New Wheaties Box?

Thanks to Slate for their article discussing the Madden football game series' enormous popularity. The article suggests: "To a new generation of football players, landing on the cover of the latest version of the game is a career-defining experience, the way an enormous shoe contract, or the Wheaties box, or the cover of Sports Illustrated once determined which sports stars had hit the big time." It also points out that "In the last two years, only the Grand Theft Auto games sold more copies than Madden", and Wired News are also running a story on the Madden franchise, which debuts its 2004 version this week, and was recently voted into the Pro Football Hall Of Fame.