NFL addresses Electronic Arts exclusivity

Electronic Arts is the sole partner of NFL in pushing out titles based on the League’s players, games, content and events and we know EA wasn’t shy about it. When IGN got to join a group of writers invited to tour NFL offices at the Big Apple, they found out that the choice to be exclusive to EA Sports wasn’t all about favoritism.

Tim Langley, NFL’s manager of consumer products, said that everyone that the NFL had licenses with were given an opportunity to push out an NFL game, but they decided to go with Electronic Arts in the end.

Langley explained, “It was a decision in the making and we really explored all options with all of our partners at the time, probably some folks who weren’t partners at the time.”

Although the details were pretty sketchy, Langley did mentioned that NFL was enjoying the “exclusivity” factor of the deal. Instead of coordinating with multiple partners, the NFL now just needs to address a single partner. They can now focus on meeting requests by one publisher, and not insult other partners by not tending to requests fairly.

But would the exclusivity of the NFL be limited to Electronic Arts alone? Probably. As Langley put it, the NFL is “thrilled to death” with the EA partnership. Seeing as the deal has yet to expire some time in the future, Madden NFL will probably be the only official NFL game for quite some time.

Via IGN – Sports

Electronic Arts is the sole partner of NFL in pushing out titles based on the League’s players, games, content and events and we know EA wasn’t shy about it. When IGN got to join a group of writers invited to tour NFL offices at the Big Apple, they found out that the choice to be exclusive to EA Sports wasn’t all about favoritism.

Tim Langley, NFL’s manager of consumer products, said that everyone that the NFL had licenses with were given an opportunity to push out an NFL game, but they decided to go with Electronic Arts in the end.

Langley explained, “It was a decision in the making and we really explored all options with all of our partners at the time, probably some folks who weren’t partners at the time.”

Although the details were pretty sketchy, Langley did mentioned that NFL was enjoying the “exclusivity” factor of the deal. Instead of coordinating with multiple partners, the NFL now just needs to address a single partner. They can now focus on meeting requests by one publisher, and not insult other partners by not tending to requests fairly.

But would the exclusivity of the NFL be limited to Electronic Arts alone? Probably. As Langley put it, the NFL is “thrilled to death” with the EA partnership. Seeing as the deal has yet to expire some time in the future, Madden NFL will probably be the only official NFL game for quite some time.

Via IGN – Sports