EA To Sign Exclusive NFL Deal? (gamasutra.com)
05-20-04, 07:33 AM
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EA To Sign Exclusive NFL Deal? (gamasutra.com)
Taken from gamasutra.com
An unconfirmed report in The Sports Business Journal has suggested that Electronic Arts officials may be about to sign a $1 billion dollar deal for the exclusive rights to use NFL player names and likenesses. The deal is rumored to be for four years, at a cost of $250 million every twelve months.
The deal would give the company’s NFL products a considerable advantage over Sega's ESPN NFL Football, which would no longer be able to use official player names and likenesses.
However, the company’s Madden NFL titles are already far more successful than any other franchise, which does make suggestions of such an expensive deal seem less believable.
Source: The Sports Business Journal
An unconfirmed report in The Sports Business Journal has suggested that Electronic Arts officials may be about to sign a $1 billion dollar deal for the exclusive rights to use NFL player names and likenesses. The deal is rumored to be for four years, at a cost of $250 million every twelve months.
The deal would give the company’s NFL products a considerable advantage over Sega's ESPN NFL Football, which would no longer be able to use official player names and likenesses.
However, the company’s Madden NFL titles are already far more successful than any other franchise, which does make suggestions of such an expensive deal seem less believable.
Source: The Sports Business Journal
05-20-04, 08:32 AM
#2
DVD Talk Godfather
Re: EA To Sign Exclusive NFL Deal? (gamasutra.com)
Didn't the NFL do this around '99? I remember only one football game actually had the license and the others didn't.
Sounds like EA has money to burn. I mean it is the most successful football francise and sells more than any other game. Not to mention they knocked out one of their competitors in MS. Add to that, Sammy buying Sega, who knows where that franchise will go.
How many games do they need to sell in 4 years to make back a billion dollars? Rough numbers: if they MADE $50 on every game they would have to sell 20 million units just to break even. Add in production costs, and factor in that they don't make $50 a game and that number rises drastically. So roughly that would be over 5 million copies a year. Those are Zelda and Halo numbers right there for a yearly franchise.
Sounds like a colossal waste of money to me. Then again I'm not payed a ton of money to sit in an office and think up cornball ideas like this one.
Sounds like EA has money to burn. I mean it is the most successful football francise and sells more than any other game. Not to mention they knocked out one of their competitors in MS. Add to that, Sammy buying Sega, who knows where that franchise will go.
How many games do they need to sell in 4 years to make back a billion dollars? Rough numbers: if they MADE $50 on every game they would have to sell 20 million units just to break even. Add in production costs, and factor in that they don't make $50 a game and that number rises drastically. So roughly that would be over 5 million copies a year. Those are Zelda and Halo numbers right there for a yearly franchise.
Sounds like a colossal waste of money to me. Then again I'm not payed a ton of money to sit in an office and think up cornball ideas like this one.
05-20-04, 08:46 AM
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And EA will now be on Live, which IMHO was there last hurdle to increased revenue. Unless ESPN comes with a free hand job I do not see EA doing anything but having a huge increase in sales this year w/o any exclusive NFLPA contract.
05-20-04, 09:54 AM
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EA Sports' rivals heave a sigh of relief as reports are decried as false
Both Electronic Arts and the NFL Players Association have moved to deny reports that they are working towards a major exclusive deal for player rights licensing, with the Sports Business Journal retracting its original story.
"The story published in Sports Business Journal includes some serious errors related to agreements between EA and its partners," Electronic Arts spokesman Glen O'Connell told gi.biz. "The financials reported in the story are incorrect by an order of magnitude and the NFL Players Association has contacted the publisher to request a correction."
The NFL Players Association has also separately denied the reports, which suggested that EA would enter into a four-year exclusive licensing deal with Players, Inc (NFLPA's licensing arm) costing some $250 million per year.
Both Electronic Arts and the NFL Players Association have moved to deny reports that they are working towards a major exclusive deal for player rights licensing, with the Sports Business Journal retracting its original story.
"The story published in Sports Business Journal includes some serious errors related to agreements between EA and its partners," Electronic Arts spokesman Glen O'Connell told gi.biz. "The financials reported in the story are incorrect by an order of magnitude and the NFL Players Association has contacted the publisher to request a correction."
The NFL Players Association has also separately denied the reports, which suggested that EA would enter into a four-year exclusive licensing deal with Players, Inc (NFLPA's licensing arm) costing some $250 million per year.
05-20-04, 10:04 AM
#10
Retired
I figured it had to be fake. Madden kills the competition. Sony and MS's offerings sucked, so it's easy to see why they died. But even the solid Sega offerings have never made a dent in the sales of Madden.
