The NFL needs to grant a license to 2kSports and Sony Development Studios

[BigOrangeVol4Life]

Can’t understand why EA Sports has to have an exclusive license. The Madden series has its good points, but there were a lot of things NFL 2k kicked their tails in. I’ve read many times that the last NFL 2k game before the series came to a halt is still better than today’s Madden. I want to see what the developers of MLB The Show are capable of with an NFL game too. Competition makes products better. If you can’t hack it, hire better programmers and designers. The Madden series could certainly be worse, but there are problems they simply cannot get right, and it’s looking like they’ll never fix. If the NFL wants to gain even more popularity with the gaming community, they would be wise to do away with their exclusive license and let SDS and 2k Sports try their hands.

[Kanobi]

Re: The NFL needs to grant a license to 2kSports and Sony Development Studios

Not happening for the foreseeable future. Better off hoping for an XFL partnership with 2k

[daflyboys]

Re: The NFL needs to grant a license to 2kSports and Sony Development Studios

How many threads are we gonna have like this?

[Phil Spiderman]

Re: The NFL needs to grant a license to 2kSports and Sony Development Studios

The nfl can't do that, that's not how any of this works. But why would they even want to? They make a killing off all you idiots who keep buying that crap game from ea every single year. Then after you buy it and realize it's still crap, you keep feeding them $ by playing into their ultimate team con job. So everybody who knows the game sux keeps buying it every year, and then on top of that they reel in a new generation of buyers every year who think the game is great because they've never played anything better from 2 consoles ago. Ea and the nfl are both very happy with things like they are, I bet.

[ElectricAggie]

Re: The NFL needs to grant a license to 2kSports and Sony Development Studios

Not happening for the foreseeable future. Better off hoping for an XFL partnership with 2k

Same. With a college mode as an add-on.

Sent from my SM-N960U1 using Tapatalk

[drae2]

Re: The NFL needs to grant a license to 2kSports and Sony Development Studios

Just do a college game...

[ijumpedthegun]

Re: The NFL needs to grant a license to 2kSports and Sony Development Studios

I'd be interested in someone doing a deep study on the split of revenue when EA and 2k both had a license and adjusting it for things like inflation, microtransactions, increased consumer spending to compare it to what EA makes now.

I'd be willing to bet that the NFL would make more money off of two games than just one, but the only evidence I have is anecdotal. If there were two NFL games and they were both good, I'd buy both of them.

[roadman]

Re: The NFL needs to grant a license to 2kSports and Sony Development Studios

A poster from OS, Dr. Jones, used to work for EA on the Triple Play series.

He mentioned this in a post about a decade ago or so and I took this post from the Madden forum recently:

The NFL, by going exclusive, made more off of one company, EA, than all 4 or 5 companies combined. And by the way, the NFL Players Union also chimed in a few years ago and stated they have a strong relationship with EA. This relationship is now 15 years strong on the business end of things.

So, to keep things simple, let's say all of those companies had a million dollar licensing fee to pay the NFL. The NFL eliminated all of the companies except EA and charged EA 100 million licensing fee. I'm keeping the figures simple to save time.

You would literally need to convince the NFL to change their preferred model for business, and that is exclusivity.

I really don't see that happening, which is why I'm hoping like Kanoboi mentioned above.

[daflyboys]

Re: The NFL needs to grant a license to 2kSports and Sony Development Studios

Bottom line answer. Make a PC game that is generic and let a modding community mod the **** out of it.

End of discussion.

[Moegames]

Re: The NFL needs to grant a license to 2kSports and Sony Development Studios

A poster from OS, Dr. Jones, used to work for EA on the Triple Play series.

He mentioned this in a post about a decade ago or so and I took this post from the Madden forum recently:

The NFL, by going exclusive, made more off of one company, EA, than all 4 or 5 companies combined. And by the way, the NFL Players Union also chimed in a few years ago and stated they have a strong relationship with EA. This relationship is now 15 years strong on the business end of things.

So, to keep things simple, let's say all of those companies had a million dollar licensing fee to pay the NFL. The NFL eliminated all of the companies except EA and charged EA 100 million licensing fee. I'm keeping the figures simple to save time.

You would literally need to convince the NFL to change their preferred model for business, and that is exclusivity.

I really don't see that happening, which is why I'm hoping like Kanoboi mentioned above.

All the NFL has to do is charge everyone else what they charge EA... NFL will not lose money this way, its simple but there is more too this than meets the eye...and i think that close relationship you mentioned is probably it, who knows. Maybe EA has some sort of deal under the table to prevent something like i mentioned from ever happening. I wouldn't doubt it, EA has all the money in the world, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong..I really like a lot of EA games, i even like the improvements Madden is making these days, although they are still missing some key things that what makes a football game fun but its getting better.

[illwill10]

Re: The NFL needs to grant a license to 2kSports and Sony Development Studios

NFL isn't dropping their exclusive licensing preference. Not only are they making more money off one, it gives them more control of product. As long as EA maintains status quo, no reason to see a change. Unless it has a bad image situation like Papa Johns, they aren't going to change things.

As said above, your best bet is hoping for a XFL 2k partnership. 2k would only do a football game if it is licensed. But honestly, i think a XFL 2k game might not sell "well".

[roadman]

Re: The NFL needs to grant a license to 2kSports and Sony Development Studios

All the NFL has to do is charge everyone else what they charge EA... NFL will not lose money this way, its simple but there is more too this than meets the eye...and i think that close relationship you mentioned is probably it, who knows. Maybe EA has some sort of deal under the table to prevent something like i mentioned from ever happening. I wouldn't doubt it, EA has all the money in the world, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong..I really like a lot of EA games, i even like the improvements Madden is making these days, although they are still missing some key things that what makes a football game fun but its getting better.

I started to read your first sentence and thought that was a great idea, but then, realized the NFL would need to get rid of their business model of exclusive licensing, similar to what Iwill mentioned above me.

I highly doubt that will happen under the present and or maybe future leadership of the NFL.

[illwill10]

Re: The NFL needs to grant a license to 2kSports and Sony Development Studios

I started to read your first sentence and thought that was a great idea, but then, realized the NFL would need to get rid of their business model of exclusive licensing, similar to what Iwill mentioned above me.

I highly doubt that will happen under the present and or maybe future leadership of the NFL.

You can't make an exception when it comes to business model especially for a video game. They are dead set on exclusive licensing. If you do it for a video game, then it would probably start a trickle down effect. If you are going to allow 2k, then why not Coke, or Heineken, or Domino's. That's what the thinking probably would be. There would have to be a reason for NFL to want a change. Madden will continue to sell well. It has the finances to pay exclusive deals especially since EA is making billions just off of microtransactions/live services. And the Madden brand is so strong. So unless NFL wants to shake things up, no reason to change whats working

[mercalnd]

Re: The NFL needs to grant a license to 2kSports and Sony Development Studios

All the NFL has to do is charge everyone else what they charge EA...

It doesn't work like that. EA, or any other company for that matter, would not be willing to pay that much if the license is not exclusive. They pay more for the exclusivity than the actual license to use NFL properties.

[kehlis]

Re: The NFL needs to grant a license to 2kSports and Sony Development Studios

You can't make an exception when it comes to business model especially for a video game. They are dead set on exclusive licensing. If you do it for a video game, then it would probably start a trickle down effect. If you are going to allow 2k, then why not Coke, or Heineken, or Domino's. That's what the thinking probably would be. There would have to be a reason for NFL to want a change. Madden will continue to sell well. It has the finances to pay exclusive deals especially since EA is making billions just off of microtransactions/live services. And the Madden brand is so strong. So unless NFL wants to shake things up, no reason to change whats working

I'm not sure I'm following?

Roadman was talking about EA's business model. Not the NFL.

And there is nothing stopping those above companies you listed from advertising with the NFL as the NFL doesn't have exclusive "advertising" rights with anyone company.

If anything, you're actually providing an example counter to the one you're trying to make since the NFL isn't exclusive in every avenue of it's business (Coke vs. Pepsi).