EA continues sports assault with exclusive AFL deal

By Games Industry.biz Published 12 January, 2005

More football exclusivity as EA ties up with fast-growing league.

Leading publisher Electronic Arts has announced an exclusive deal to develop games based on the Arena Football League, which sees the company sewing up the rights to the popular and fast-growing American sport.

The move will see the creation of a new AFL title in the EA Sports line-up, joining other football franchises Madden, NFL Street and NCAA, with the first title due to hit the market before the 2006 AFL season starts in a year's time.

The four-year exclusive deal isn't just a straight licensing arrangement, however; EA not only receives the rights to create games based on the AFL, it also wins a financial interest in the league, with the game publisher due to receive a cut of proceeds from future expansion.

Of course, while signing the AFL - whose games are played on smaller pitches and with fewer players than its larger rivals - is a coup for EA, it's still small fry compared to the company's recent controversial signing of an exclusive licensing deal with the NFL, the country's largest American Football league.

Following the announcement of the NFL deal in December, strong rumours emerged suggesting that the company had also been in negotiation with the NBA over a similar exclusive, but was rejected by the basketball league - a claim with EA denies, saying that it has never approached the NBA with such an offer.

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Comments (13) Latest comment 7 years ago

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

  • Celeborn #1 7 years ago

    Surely there must be some Anti-Monopoly laws somewhere that should help stop / restrict this?

  • Flabio #2 7 years ago

    America's anti-monopoly laws are much weaker than the UK's. Something about their brand of capitalism.

  • The-Bodybuilder #3 7 years ago

    Are EA gonna get a mortgage for my house too?

  • Daryoon #4 7 years ago

    it is after all the best Football game there is

    You mean Armoured Rugby, surely?
    Edited by 1 at 12/01/05 @ 17:40

  • tenma #5 7 years ago

    EA needs to be rightfully bashed. Regardless of whether you think Madden is the best football game or not, the fact that they're preventing other developers from putting out a game that may be as good or better than Madden is ridiculous.

    I have no sympathy for EA when it comes to expressing how mediocre 90% of their games are.

  • The-Bodybuilder #6 7 years ago

    "Competition is Destruction
    Decision is Indecision
    Buy EA!"

    E. A. Sports. It's in the game, and soon to be every other part of your life.

  • The-Bodybuilder #7 7 years ago

    "I seriously can't stand this ridiculous EA bashing. It is crazy! And come on, I even work for a games publisher so I have more reaosn than you lot to hate them :D"

    I'm sure you must be enjoying your endless days of playinh rouge agent over and over and over again.

  • Freek #8 7 years ago

    I wonder what would happen if EA bought out MS or vice versa. Could be a nice start for a sci-fi "big brother" type story. :D

  • Bill Gates is Evil #9 7 years ago

    Surely there must be some Anti-Monopoly laws somewhere that should help stop / restrict this?

    You dumb fuck, AFL is AFL's brand and they can do whatever they god-damn want with it.

    America's anti-monopoly laws are much weaker than the UK's. Something about their brand of capitalism.

    Breaking up monopolies is not an element of capitalism-- it is an element of socialism. This has nothing to do with our "brand" of capitalism, it just simply means we are more capitalist.

  • wolfen #10 7 years ago

    Well, as pointed out, the license was vacant, and this AFL is apparently trying to gather more fans for the game, so what better than a highly publicized game? That's what got me into ice hockey back in 1996.

  • jumpdeveraux #11 7 years ago

    For any EA execs reading... a game concept...

    "Katamari Damacy - EA Edition"

    EA branded ball moves through levels representing the games industry, objective is to pick up middleware providers, devs, publishers, licences, in fact anything that gets in your way until there is nothing left.

  • 3william56 #12 7 years ago

    Damn - I thought they'd gone an snapped up Aussie Rules. Looking forward to rendered mullets, b*ll squasher skimpy shorts, and mini games involving serious sexual assault

  • Roamer #13 7 years ago

    Surely there must be some Anti-Monopoly laws somewhere that should help stop / restrict this?

    You dumb fuck, AFL is AFL's brand and they can do whatever they god-damn want with it.

    America's anti-monopoly laws are much weaker than the UK's. Something about their brand of capitalism.

    Breaking up monopolies is not an element of capitalism-- it is an element of socialism. This has nothing to do with our "brand" of capitalism, it just simply means we are more capitalist.

    I feel sad for you if you're not being sarcastic, Bill Gates is Evil. It has everything to do with your brand of capitalism. The fact that these kinds of business deals are allowed in America is a direct result of your corrupt system of government, in which large corporations have way too much power over the politicians. By the way, regulated capitalism is still capitalism.