A Better Vision of EA's NFL Deal

[elwood731]

Monday Night Football is moving to ESPN
http://beta.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl...l_monday_night

One has to wonder if maybe EA was not "aware" of all this going on before signing their deal. They now have the NFL license, ESPN license, and Monday Night Football was the last puzzle piece to add in there. They could easily drop Madden as a spokesman now and market a title called:

ESPN Monday Night Football NFL 2006
(what a mouth full)

I suppose they will keep Madden around as long as he stays with MNF and moves to ESPN.

[aedavela]

I didn't know EA had bought the ESPN license as well. And I don't see why Madden wouldn't stay with MNF since ABC owns ESPN.

[1138]

Ha! I finally got around to buying NBA 2K5 and MLB 2K5 today just because of the EA thing. I wasn't too interested in them but combined with making a statement, it was enough. And for only $20 each.

I haven't liked EA for a long time now. But they're starting to go beyond the point of dislike (but still occasionally patronize) to actual boycott for me.

[umainebearman]

So this means there will be an ESPN football game just that it won't be as good as this 2k5. Wonderfull.

[elwood731]

Originally Posted by aedavela

I didn't know EA had bought the ESPN license as well. And I don't see why Madden wouldn't stay with MNF since ABC owns ESPN.

He very well could, and with his contract likely transferring over to ESPN, he is even more likely to stay (since they will very much want to do something with MNF). Still, there have been rumors for a while that EA would drop the Madden name from their game and just become NFL Football, or something of the sort (since they will be the ONLY game). Madden, up until this point, could charge them a pretty penny since his name and image were such a part of the franchise. If they DID want to save a few bucks, they could drop his name officially from the game.