wco81 said:
The NFL exclusive contract was a big deal. The one is, "meh."
Really don't think the ESPN name helped sell games. It didn't help with the 2K4 games and for 2K5 games, it was the price cut more than the ESPN name.
I think the ESPN exclusive is less about what it does for EA, but more about what it does to Sega. For football, think of ESPN 2kx as a cow. The NFL deal was like cutting off 3 legs. The ESPN was the cutting off the last leg which Sega had to stand on. They pretty much have NOTHING to compete with in the Pro Football market (which is pretty big).
In the broader scope, this deal cuts out the ESPN license from ESPN NBA 2K also--which most would agree is better than the EA NBA Live series. So this hurts and is bound to cause some confusion when EA puts the "ESPN" label on their NBA games. If you can take part of the name that a competitor has built, well, that is a good thing. A recent example is the new GoldenEye game. I knew people who got excited over it because they liked the N64 GE game... I had to explain it was not made by the same people
We can talk about them gaining sales mainly because of the pricecut all we want, but the fact is Sega exposed a LOT of gamers to their franchise and they may have ended up switching to Sega from Madden. We also cannot discount ESPN 2004's influence either as it was a great game (I still prefer Madden). It got great reviews and I am willing to bet that JUST a price drop was not the only factor in better sales. People do play games at their friends house, considering the quality of the game, the high praise for 2004 and 2005, and then the price I think they all played a part.
So when you consider the small, but steady, growth Sega was having with its football sales and the excellent reviews EA had to be concerned. A mistep by EA could have really swung things around (it is hard to take marketshare from an opponent who is not making mistakes unless your product is better by a magnitude). A new gen is at the door--what if Madden drops the ball like they did for the PS? What if Sega had a better next gen product (e.g. they had physics driven animation and EA stuck with the mo-cap)? What if Sega left features in and added some new ones while EA cut features and "started over" like they usually do between gens? What if another year at $20?
As it was Sega was giving EA no breathing room. One off year (they have them, check some review sites) and they could lose momentum in one of their most valuable--and consistantly good selling--franchises. And new gens always have surpises.
These are all great business moves for EA as a company, but I think it hurts consumers. But when big bucks are being talked about, when the little fish catches up to the big fish, well lets just say the big fish has too much to lose.
Btw, I think these moves are just as much EA. We do not have a lot of details on the NFL deal on how it came about specifically (we know the NFL was looking at exclusives, but then again EA could have prompted this by mentioning some big money amounts to make it worth persueing... at one time it was reported to be $1B). But we do know that EA was persueing MLB and the NBA and obviously had a part in the ESPN deal. I think we would need to be a little niave to believe that EA would persue the NBA/MLB and was totally innocent in the NFL issue. Considering they have the PGA, FIFA, and another exclusive, I would say that they actually have a history of
seeking these types of agreements. So without knowing more I would not say EA only "took" the offer and never had anything to do with seeking an exclusive. All I know is the NFL is a liar (they specifically denied, and made news agencies retract, statements that there was a deal under way in the spring, which ended up being true).
Oh well, that is big business.
Ps- The ESPN deal has a 10 year option where under certain circumstances the deal can be cut off. Still, 15 years is 3
full generations
