ESPN SportsNation today announced unprecedented first round results and second round matchups for the
Madden NFL 25 Cover Vote. First round vote totals reveal early front runners from both the new school and old school player brackets. Fans have shown up at the polls in record numbers casting over 21 million first round votes, shattering last year’s week one tally and already besting last year’s vote total for the entire Madden NFL 13 Cover Vote.
New school stud Adrian Peterson and old school legend Barry Sanders have proven to be just as electric off the field as on it, easily winning their first round matchups. Sanders secured the largest margin of victory of any of the first round matchups claiming 95% of the overall vote against Bears legend Ron Rivera, while Peterson claimed 94% in his victory over Carson Palmer.
Elsewhere in the brackets the 49ers are showing their dominance, with top seeds Joe Montana, Jerry Rice and Colin Kaepernick all easily dispatching their opponents. In a surprising turn of events, new school No. 11 Darrelle Revis managed to knock off No. 6 Jamaal Charles in his quest to be the face for the new school. In the tightest first round matchup, Von Miller defeated Victor Cruz, scraping across the finish line with 51% of the votes. Other voting highlights include:
- Head-to-head first round matchups averaged 653,000 votes each, with 36% of all votes coming from mobile
- Joe Montana led all old school players with 640,000 votes, while Adrian Peterson led the new school bracket with 594,000 votes
- Joe Montana vs. Jake Delhomme led the first round matchups with more than 700,000 total votes
- SportsNation’s Madden NFL 25 Cover Vote Kickoff Show created more conversation on Twitter than any show in SportsNation history, according to Social Guide.
Voting for round two is now open and will continue through Wednesday, March 27. Fans are invited to cast their votes at
ESPN.com/MaddenVote through their PC or mobile devices. For the chance to “Maximize” votes, ESPN and Madden NFL 25 have partnered with Pepsi MAX to promote Twitter live voting every Tuesday throughout the Madden Cover Vote campaign, where tweets with each player’s respective cover vote hashtag will count as two votes. Double votes ends at midnight ET each Tuesday.