EA signs EXCLUSIVE deal with NFL

EA signs exclusive football deal
Mon Dec 13, 2004 04:44 PM ET
LOS ANGELES, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Video game publisher Electronic Arts Inc. (ERTS.O: Quote, Profile, Research) on Monday said it has signed an exclusive deal with the National Football League and the league' s players, giving EA sole rights to put NFL players and teams in its games.

Terms of the five-year deal were not disclosed.

This basically means the end of ESPN Football and 989' s Football game.

THANKS EA!

More Info.

http://investor.ea.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=88189&p=irol-newsArticle&t=Regular&id=654204&

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 13, 2004--Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS) today announced exclusive licensing relationships with the National Football League and PLAYERS INC to develop, publish and distribute interactive football games. These five-year agreements -- which EA negotiated separately -- give EA the exclusive rights to the NFL teams, stadiums and players for use in its football videogames. Both agreements also include exclusive rights for console online features. Financial terms of the agreements were not disclosed.

Yes, ESPN Football is done.

Thats pretty damn lame. ESPN made a great 05 game. Ahg thats just friggin annoying!

And people wonder why I LOATHE exclusivity clauses so damn much. I present you with people' s Exhibit B posted above.



I guess the increased success of ESPN 2005 and its current momentum kinda made em little nervous maybe?
We' ll just have to wait and see just HOW Sega works around this if there is one, but it looks like Take-Two has already given up.

Exclusive licenses are in fact really dumb. EA has effectively knocked out the competition. Everyone knows that EA doesn' t make good games very often, so they need all the help they can get. But damn, this is EVIL! I imagine that there will be a lawsuit or two filed as this is completely unfair for the competition.

Others need to take EA' s retarded whisper to heart... " CHALLENGE EVERYTHING!" Yes, everything. Challenge your couch. Challenge the fact that when you press " W" on your keyboard a " W" appears on your screen. Challenge the air you breathe. Challenge this exclusive. Challenge EVERYTHING. And whisper when you say it.

In a few years I wouldn' t be at all surprised to read a newsbit like this:

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. --(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 27, 2010--Electronic Arts announced today that they' ve signed a deal giving them exclusive rights to ALL sports. From football, baseball, and volleyball down to dodgeball and stickball, all sports are covered by the new deal as well as all sporting venues -- preventing game designers from including sporting arenas in the backgrounds of their racing games.

In related news, as a result of EA' s new deal several development houses have closed up shop, several have gone bankrupt and Daytona USA 5 has been aptly renamed Crazy Bumper Cars with the tracks and vehicles getting remodeled to fit the new theme.

Oh sweet! 3 new Daytonas in 6 years! I can see EA releasing a Daytona game. They' d remove Takenobu Mitsuyoshi' s fruity but classic soundtrack and put in mediocre-at-best whiny top 40 and/or whiny punk music. They' d also put in an incredibly lame DJ that is unbearable and interrupts his own songs to dish out one-liners.

Oh yeah, EA is so great!

Ea sucks and this is just another reason for me to hate them even more. There are only three games from them I like- NFSU, NFSU2, and MoH(the original). Everything else is crap. I can' t stand any of their sports games. Now that they have no competition in football games Madden is just going to get crappier since they don' t have to try. F*ck ' em.

MoH:AA was the one I played long ago but that was when it was owned by 2015. The only other good games from EA that Ive played were Burnout 3 and 007:EoN and Def Jam:FFNY. Otherwise most games they have out I can find another company making a similar game only better, especially in the sports area.

wow!!! and espn was making some big old strides toward more market share....well...there goes that. EA better do some good stuff with this privelege.

I have to agree with pretty much everybody here. Exclusivity is dumb. With EA having a monopoly on the NFL games now, what real pressure is on them to strive to make there games better. They know people want to play NFL football (not me) on there systems, so they have to buy they' re product. Garbage. I' d like to know just how much money was thrown around to get this deal done.

Looks like I will be acquiring all of the ESPN titles from this year...

' Cause I can' t standz EA sports...except Tiger Woods Golf...and that' s only because a decent rival hasn' t been produced (correct me, if I' m wrong...I would love to be wrong here.)

EA Sports...We' re the big suckie monopoly company!!!

I hope this wont stop SEGA from making really good Football games.Even if they have to make fake teams.

Apparently EA are paying $250 million over the next five years for the exclusivity deal. That' s $50 million a year. That my friends is a fuckload of money. I don' t know how many units of Madden EA shift every year but I can' t see it being much more than 5 million (if that), which means they' re basically paying $10 per copy. Admittedly EA through doing this will basically kill off any competition and hence there' s not much stopping them from charging a premium (say an extra $5 - $10) on every copy of the game that they sell. Still at this early stage there' s only one winner and it certainly isn' t EA.

omg that could not happen.Thanks for telling me

Hope the rumors artn true about the NBA and MLB (even tho I hate baseball but still).

Maybe sega will release ESPN XFL 2K6.