Exclusive Deal Not Good For All Players

By Mike Koss | September 30, 2008

So it seems that the EA NFL exclusivity deal has marred by more than disdain from the gamers. For those just joining us, way back in 2004 EA was able to sign an deal w/ the NFL, NFLPA, etc for exclusive rights to anything NFL: players, teams, statistics, stadiums, etc. This allowed them to cement their football franchise, Madden, as the place for authentic American professional football. Now as we all remember, there was much hullabaloo from us gamers at the time because this meant the end of competition for that genre. And who could blame them? If the 2k series of sports games still had the same access to material as EA did, I’d lay money that certain things would be different. After all, competition breeds innovation, right?

Well now it seems that this deal has ticked off another group of players. These players happen to retirees from the NFL. From the information that has come forward, the NFLPA undersold the rights to the retired players by a large margin. Oh, and did you hear that the deal was for less than what Take-Two was offering for the rights? See the gist of it is the NFLPA is supposed to be group that watches out for the players, and doing things in their best interest. This time it seems that certain individuals decided to do what was best for them and not for whom their representing. Tsk, tsk, tsk. I can’t want to see the backlash from the lawsuit. Odds are we won’t be seeing the deal reveresed and EA no longer having exclusive access to the license. But here’s hoping that this helps take the wind out of sails of the ship on which the evil-side of EA resides.

Via ArsTechnica.com