EA Secures all College Football rights.

[downfall]

http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news/?ei=ISO-8859-1&c=&p=ea+sports


CLC Grants EA Exclusive College Football Videogame License
Monday April 11, 8:30 am ET


ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 11, 2005--The Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC) today announced an exclusive licensing relationship with Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS - News) to develop, publish and distribute interactive college football games. The six-year agreement gives EA the exclusive rights to the teams, stadiums and schools for use in its best-selling college football videogames. The agreement is for all videogame consoles including console online features and handheld devices. The first title under the new contract, NCAA Football 2006, is scheduled for release this summer. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

"When we began our analysis of the videogame landscape, it became apparent that EA SPORTS was best positioned from a marketing and development perspective to maximize the sales opportunities for college football," said Pat Battle, CEO of The Collegiate Licensing Company.

"Electronic Arts has been a tremendous partner, and we are thrilled that the EA SPORTS team has renewed its commitment to the college market. We look forward to seeing how EA will continue to grow its NCAA Football franchise through innovative game play, unique marketing programs and its dedicated sales force."

"EA SPORTS is currently our top non-apparel licensee," said Mike Low, Director of Licensing at the University of Notre Dame. "Fans love the effort they put into making the stadium, the traditions, mascots and the whole game environment so realistic."

"Our NCAA football franchise is a key element in our EA SPORTS brand lineup and we are pleased to have secured the NCAA license," said Jeff Karp, Group Vice President of Marketing for Electronic Arts. "There is an unrivaled loyalty our fans have for the game, and this agreement with CLC allows EA to continue to deliver to fans the best, most innovative college football experience now and for years to come."

EA's NCAA Football 2005 was the only college football title released in 2004. Its NCAA Football franchise, published under the EA SPORTS(TM) brand, has sold more than a million units in each of its three most recent iterations and was the #7 console title in terms of retail revenue in North America in 2004. NCAA Football 2005, currently is available for the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, Xbox® videogame system from Microsoft, and Nintendo GameCube(TM). The game was developed by EA Tiburon based in Orlando, FL and rated "E" (Everyone) by the ESRB.

[shvnsth]

good, sega won't put out a college game, and the others just suck. i hated the madden thing, but this is the only fb game i play anyways, and ea actually does it right, even if they are a greedy company, etc etc, ....

[gepeto]

Ea could have passed this savings on to the consumer or more importantly there employees. History has proven when the cards favor Ea they get lazy with there product innovation. Anyone who thinks other wise is lying to themselves. Rememeber madden 96? for psx or saturn It got canned because gameday was a better product. Ea runs their product in the ground with new releases every 10 plus months all while charging premium rates. No use of buying football games for the next few years because they will all be the same.

[Nature Boy]

Hooray! Another anouncement that'll bring on the EA Haterz! I feel like it's been *ages* since I waded through their mindless rantings!!!

</sarcasm>

[Snapple]

Competition drives quality. Universal truth.

Any...way... as I said in the other thread before it was locked, EA isn't totally to blame. The NCAA and NFL didn't have to go exclusive with their licenses. They chose to. EA just nudged them into it by using their leverage of big bucks.

Also, not only does competition drive quality, but it drives prices down. See: Price of ESPN NFL 2K5.

[DragonMaster Sam]

EA Sports does make the best college fooball games. And they manage to make it better each year.

[badinsults]

good, sega won't put out a college game, and the others just suck. i hated the madden thing, but this is the only fb game i play anyways, and ea actually does it right, even if they are a greedy company, etc etc, ....

Um, Sega sold off Visual Concepts to Take Two, I believe. So Sega will not be making any sports games anymore.

[AFGiant]

http://img112.echo.cx/img112/6082/earevil9uy.gif

[Joelius]

I agree with the direct above stated.

[swlovinist]

Nah earth is not next, EA is planning to build the Death Star III instead :D

[Lord007]

EA probably just wasted money with this exclusive agreement...are there any other new college football games anyways (not made by EA)?

[Gamereviewgod]

EA probably just wasted money with this exclusive agreement...are there any other new college football games anyways (not made by EA)?

Not currently, but rumors said that's where Take Two was going next. That's why they did it.

[SKVermin]

As a sports gamer, I've made my fair share of rants on the subject of exclusivity with regards to licenses, but I'm actually glad that EA wrapped this one up before somebody else did.

Of course, I would have preferred that NOBODY get an exclusive, but with the current state of wheeling and dealing, that had about as much likelihood as the VIC-20 resurfacing as a legitimate competitor in the next generation console war.

But one feature that has always been fun in the football genre is the ability to play out a season of college ball and export your graduating class for import into Madden. It's cool to see the players you nurtured from freshman to senior and watch where their pro career takes them. I was surprised that Take Two didn't go after the NCAA license to deny that. (Maybe they did, but the price wasn't right?)

[GarrettCRW]

[Charlie Brown voice] I can't stand it![/Charlie Brown voice]

The college football games were never a priority for me (seeing as how many of them are simply the prior year's NFL game with laterals, the wishbone, and spread offenses), but this is just silly. Competition (and fair competition, at that) is the cornerstone of our society, and has seen some genuine, honest-to-God innovations in sports video games in recent years. These exclusive contracts will help one entity: EA. Because, believe me, there are people who will buy a Visual Concepts/Sega sports title and its EA equivalent, which the NFL, MLB, NBA, college football, etc. would certainly find preferable to a single, overpriced title for each league.

[Big Papa Husker]

Whats the big deal? I was hoping EA did this because I didnt want anyone taking the license away from EA. They have made the best NCAA games since the start of the PS2 and make them better each year. Now if they could add different regional annoucers... Maybe PS3.

[stevec1636]

I love playing sports games and i don't like what EA is doing. Last year ESPN games were so much better than any EA game and EA knows this. That's why they are buying the rights to all this stuff. All this does is force us into only having one choice of a certain sport good or bad.
Since nobody else made a NCAA football game last year it dosn't matter to much with that game. But the others....... :angry:

[SoulBlazer]

No big deal to me. NCAA Football has ALWAYS been the best college football game, hands down. I'm just glad I can continue to import my college players into Madden and see them do well into the pro season.

[davec]

All Hail the unholy EA!

[classicb]

Well I'm not a fan of EA at all but I would hate it if the NCAA and NFL rights were split up between two different companies. One of my favorite things to do is play my freshman QB through 4 years of college win the Heisemen and then draft him into the NFL. I'm still not a big fan of this crap EA is pulling but playing the latest football games both college and NFL is something me and my friends enjoy doing every year so I'm sure if I don't get it one of my friends will. I hope in some way EA sees that they have alot of people really angry at them and deleiver a huge game that makes it all worth it. (of course they'll probably sit on that for the next ten years of whatever it is with minor imporvements)

[Bluteg]

This just makes me appreciates Uzi 9mm's avatar even more. Take Two/Rockstar totally fucked Midnight Club 3 so they are now dependant on anything they can get so this is a blow towards them.

[Snapple]

It doesn't matter that EA makes the best college football game.

If they know they have a monopoly of the market now, they have absolutely no incentive to make significant improvements each year. They're only going to tweak the game just enough so that people continue to buy it.

The problem isn't EA's development team. It's lack of competition. You can't have a good genre if it doesn't have competition, just like you can't have a good system if it doesn't have competition.

Maybe EA never really had that big of a competitor on the college football stage specifically, but the *threat* of potential competitors was always there. Every few years, a football game has come out that scared the Madden franchise. Your NFL Blitzes and your ESPNs. Same thing could've happened in college football, and that kept EA on their toes. Now that's not there anymore

There are plenty of real-world examples of companies buying out or beating out their competition and then heavily dropping off in quality almost immediately thereafter.

*Who* got the exclusive license doesn't make this a happy story. The fact that anyone has exclusive rights to such a popular sport is not cool.

[Iron Draggon]

OK, so how long until Sega or somebody sues them for their obvious monopolistic license aquisitions? Surely this shit has got to be illegal, can no one save us from EA?

Look, up in the sky... OMG, it's a barrage of EA missiles!

[Griking]

Hooray! Another anouncement that'll bring on the EA Haterz! I feel like it's been *ages* since I waded through their mindless rantings!!!

</sarcasm>


Hooray! Another person who should have known to avoid a topic altogether based on the subject but decided to complain about it instead.

</sarcasm>

[Griking]

I suppose since EA couldn't just trademark the term "football" they decided to take this route instead.

BTW the people at Pop Warner must be licking their chops right about now awaiting EA's phone call.

[bargora]

I suggest that everybody reread this thread (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=50991) just to refresh yourselves on who dislikes whom and which stupid opinions are held by which buffoons.

This isn't the attempted monopolization you're looking for. Move along.