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EA Monopolizes NFL License

Financial Spread Trading Electronic Arts today announced that it has signed a five year deal with the NFL that will grant the mega-publisher essentially exclusive rights to the NFL license. The move, which basically shatters the likelihood of existence of future and rival NFL titles such as the 2K, GameDay, and Blitz series', seems like a knee-jerk reaction to the strong sales experienced by Sega Sammy and Take 2's budget priced ESPN Football, but the parties involved insist that isn't true. EA's Madden series used to outsell Sega's NFL titles by a margin of about 10-to-1 but recently that margin has shrunk to a mere 1.5-to-1.

"We started talking about this months before the ESPN product even hit the shelves," Gene Upshaw, director of the NFL Players Association, told Reuters. "Its been an ongoing dialogue about what can we do in this category to make it better for all of us."

EA was one of several companies apparently bidding for the prized exclusivity agreement. Now that they have won, they plan to use the license outside of the Madden and NFL Street franchises as well.

"We are excited about the opportunity to further enhance our relationship with the NFL and PLAYERS INC," said Larry Probst, Chairman and CEO of Electronic Arts. "The five-year agreements will usher NFL fans through the console technology transition with new ideas and innovative game play experiences."

The exclusivity deal covers games developed for consoles, the PC and hand held game systems. Other segments of the market, such as cell phones, are not included in the agreement so competing products can appear on such platforms.

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