EA To Get Exclusive NFL Player Rights?

Thanks to GameSpot for its news story reporting that EA may be on the verge of an exclusive contract for NFL football player likenesses. According to the piece, which quotes a Sports Business Journal 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." The story goes on to note: "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." Update: 05/19 21:07 GMT by S : It seems the linked article has been retracted: "When contacted by GameSpot, NFLPA executives said that not only was the story false, but The Sports Business Journal has since run a retraction."

Comments

Monopoly

[Mr_Blank]

EA's competitors will go after the NFL and the player's association on the basis of the NFL unfairly using its Monopoloy. Have you ever heard at the end of a televised NFL game that "this broadcast is copyrighted by the NFL. Pictures, vidoes, and descriptions of this game my not be rebroadcast blah blah blah without written permission from the NFL". As far as I understand it, this applies even to the evening news stations. Imagine if FOX got an exclusive deal with the NFL to be the only broadcaster to be able to show video clips from the game. Every other televised news program and sports program would be in serious jeapordy with a segment of their customers. Here is where it gets interesting: The NFL (and NBA and Major League Baseball by the way) are given limited monopolies in the US by Congress. That monopoly power is powerful good for making money, but it also gives the leagues special responsibilities. If anyone or any other company thinks the NFL is abusing its monopoly power, then they can sue. Everytime the league gets sued it risks earning the ire and scrutinty of Congress which could revoke its monopoly license - imagine each team owener actually having to compete in the market place instead of being able to work closely together to set prices blah blah blah; the players union would run prices through the sky. Anyhow, for an example of the monopoly being tested in court read about the Maurice Clarett case. In a nut, if this deal goes through the other game manufacturers can sue that the NFL's monopoloy is unfairly hurting their businesses.

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Re:Thats a real Shedload of cash.

[xaqar]

Um...EA makes Madden.

Interesting...

[JavaLord]

"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."

This is an interesting move by EA. It makes sense for them to put their rivals out of the NFL simulation game business. With Madden 2004, in my opinion EA took a step back by making the game more realistic yet less fun. The story as I heard it goes, John Madden was watching his son play Madden Football on the Playstation and his Son converted a 4th and 28. When he told his son "hey that was nice" he Son replied back, "Uhh no I do it all the time". To which John Madden replied, "Well that isn't right". He complained about it, and in Madden 2004 they hard coded in the percentages that a play should fail based on the NFL percentages from the year before (ie, 4th down tries only succeed about 21% of the time). While this makes for a fun football simulation, it's not really dependant on the players skill so to me it's not fun knowing I'm winning or losing based on a virtual coin toss rather than my own skill.

The point of this story was this, while EA may lock up the players rights to fight off it's competitors, there is still money to be made with sports games. There were plenty of games that were very good that weren't licenced by the NBA or NFL players associations. They can often licence one players name for the game such as Joe Montana's football for Sega way back when. Joe Montana's football was great for it's time, and had no basis in reality (games would end with Arena football scores like 71-68) yet many gamers I know look back at it fondly. Another example of a game without a licence succeeding is hoops for the original NES. Blades of Steel didn't have a licence but more people remember that game than the old NHL hockey games.

Overall this could be a big winner for EA, but it could also lead to more innovative games for the sports genre as rival companies try to find a different solution.

7-10 years ago football games sucked

[Syncdata]

Yes, in the heady days of 10 yard fight, and baseball simulator 1000, there were no team names, or player names, and it was fine.

But graphics then were terrible. You had no expectation that sprite A would look or behave like Jerry Rice.

Now however, when we can watch the Wide receivers eyes track the ball before he catches it on an instant replay, things like getting accurate names/team names matter greatly.

I've always been a fan of the game competing with madden, most recently ESPN/NFL2x, but if this deal goes through, the only other football games we'll see will be akin to NFL blitz. No company will invest the resources in a simulation without naming rights.

This is anti-competitive, but that's been EA's style all along. Can't compete with Command and conquer? Buy Westwood.

At least EA realizes that their utter marketplace ownership of video-football is not due to a superior product, and they need to somehow bolster their stance. Improve the game? Nah, why not just put sega/microsoft/989 out of the sports business.

Re:You don't need a license.

[FortKnox]

The reason I play football games is so I can be the Steelers, not teamA with a bunch of unknowns. In fact, I can start a Madden game, and immediately know the strengths and weaknesses of my own team, along with my opponent, because I watch real football. I know players by name, who to double team, when the best time to blitz, etc... If you don't have that, you are creating a game with a HUUUGE learning curve. That will kill any competitor game.

EA is trying to go for the monopoly in the gaming industry and is probably cornered the gaming market for PC games. Nintendo and Sony have some power in the consoles, but this is a reach to take hold of the sports part of the consoles.