EA Sports to continue with Madden name

By Tom Bramwell Published 17 April, 2009

Despite veteran broadcaster's retirement.

Peter Moore has said that EA Sports' American football games will continue to use Madden branding despite the commentator's retirement, announced yesterday.

"We all obviously knew this day would one day come, when John would walk away from the booth, but he certainly leaves a lasting legacy that we're proud to be able to carry on through our Madden NFL videogame franchise for years to come," Moore, president of EA Sports, wrote on his blog.

"As you can imagine, we've had dozens of questions today about what impact John's retirement from NBC will have on EA Sports. I'm pleased that we continue our strong relationship with John and will continue to produce new versions [of] Madden NFL football with his collaboration, including this August with Madden NFL 10."

Speaking to CBS News (thanks GameSpot), Madden himself said he was retiring to spend more time with his family.

Moore's update also spelled out the veteran broadcaster and former coach's dedication to the game series that bears his name. "Our dev team at Tiburon estimates that John has recorded roughly 30,000 lines of commentary for the game over the years," he wrote.

Madden NFL 10 is due out for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2 and PSP this August.

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (10) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Gnort #1 3 years ago

    Not surprising - the brand soon becomes more important than the actual person. Look at Codemaster's persistence with the Colin McRae name even after their rally games ceased to have anything to do with him.

  • Reihn #2 3 years ago

    Agreed that it's not surprising - and his involvement in the games was getting less and less. Madden 09 recycled all of his dialogue recordings from Madden 08.

  • Rodster #3 3 years ago

    And Madden 08 recycled all of his dialogue recordings from Madden 07 and Madden 06 recycled all of his dialogue recordings from Madden 05. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. :p

  • Zomoniac #4 3 years ago

    Look at Codemaster's persistence with the Colin McRae name even after their rally games ceased to have anything to do with him.

    And continue to even after he has ceased completely.

  • emhaslam92 #5 3 years ago

    didnt even know it was named after someone. guess i never wondered... or cared....
    Edited by 1 at 17/04/09 @ 10:56

  • Darren #6 3 years ago

    The NBA Live and NHL franchises from EA sell well without a big star name attached to them so I don't see why they have to continue calling the game Madden now, especially as Take 2's then-superb NFL 2K series is long gone so there's no confusion there. They should just call it NFL 09 and get rid of Madden completely, he doesn't contribute much to the game anyway apart from the same recycled comments each year.

  • GordonJ #7 3 years ago

    With the NBA and NHL there are so many games each week that there isn't a single recognisable, commentating, character for their sports (other than Don Cherry from HNIC)

    So John Madden is easily more recognised. Plus Jaworski NFL 10 doesn't quite have the same ring :)
    Edited by 1 at 17/04/09 @ 13:13

  • tripitaka #8 3 years ago

    Imagine if FIFA was called "Jon Motson International Soccer 09"...

  • riz23 #9 3 years ago

    There is probably a lot of room in that booth now that Big Jon has walked out.

  • Cider-X #10 3 years ago

    "Our dev team at Tiburon estimates that John has recorded roughly 30,000 lines of commentary for the game over the years,"


    Too bad the game is only capable of playing back the 7 same lines over and over.