EA NFL Deal Cost $300+ Million (December 16, 2004)

[ChrisReid]

CNN has run a story EA's Exclusive NFL Bid. Rumors about the cost of the agreement have been all over, but this source puts it slightly over $300 million. While that would wipe out the gross returns on an entire year's Madden sales, the price may make sense when distributed over five years. The article also makes a good point about the 2011 football season.

A bigger question, perhaps, is what happens five years down the road. Will the license be hotly contested – or has EA, in essence, bought a lifelong deal with the NFL? One of the chief expenses in sports games is the cost to render the players' likenesses - in other words, to create lifelike animated facial models, which give in-game players a photo-realistic appearance.

When the EA/NFL/NFL Players deal expires, no company will have renders of the league's 1,400 players, which would cost millions – and could discourage bidding.

You can find the complete article here.

--
Original update published on December 16, 2004