Electronic Arts, ESPN hook up in exclusive 15-year deal – News at GameSpot: First and foremost: Electronic Arts is a company in the business of making money. Having exclusive rights to things like the NFL and ESPN will give them the only game in town. Having said that, they are playing quite dirty with Sega/Take Two. From Kotaku comes this story on Gamesport. From the post:
“Electronic Arts broke the calm of a national holiday today by announcing a licensing deal of epic proportions. For the next fifteen years, EA will be the sole licensee of the ESPN brand in the area of sports games, which will include console, handheld, PC, and wireless games.”
Right now, ESPN is on an extended time-out with me with the way they’ve treated Ohio State, so they are only a couple notches below EA on the “Eveel, like the Deveel” ladder with me.
I see like this: Sega gets hooked up with Fox Sports (who currently has the rights to the Super Bowl and World Series). I’m not a big fan of The Best Damn Sports Show, but they do have Max now in their lineup and they could roll some of their personalities into Video Game personas.
This does suck for most NFL video game fans, who have had their right to choose swept from under their feet, but as I said at the beginning, this is a business (currently a big business) so I don’t fault EA for the moves they’ve made, but this certainly doesn’t bode well for the little guy.