[quote name='Scrubking'][quote name='CrashSpyro123']From Gamespot's article on the decision by the NFL to make their license exclusive:
A source close to the negotiations said it was at a spring, 2004, off-site meeting attended by top NFL officials that the league determined it would take the league license exclusive. GameSpot was told the league put the license up for bid and that EA was among as many as five software publishers competing for it. An EA spokesperson said today, "Obviously, exclusives are more expensive. We are most certainly paying a premium."[/quote]
First of all please stop kissing EA's ass. Your 'this isn't a big deal' attitude is totally wrong as proven by many here already.
Secondly that doesn't mean shit since EA could have contacted the NFL and said "why don't you put up the NFL license up for exlusive bid so that we can buy it for a shit load of money and it won't look so bad". Shady backroom deals are common with evil, greedy corporations.
And I hope they raise the price of the next madden to $80 so I can laugh at the ass raping EA will be giving you and all other madden fanboys.[/quote]
It's a big deal, there I said it. You happy now? I'm not going to be

ing pissed off by EA because I feel they weren't underhandedly deceptive in doing this. There's no proof to what you're saying but there's proof that the NFL decided to go exclusive last spring, before the ESPN series went to $19.99. I feel that everyone seems to be going way overboard in calling EA the devil or Hitler in that this could've gone 4 other ways. We'd still be pissed because this would've happened anyway.
I haven't gotten as much playtime with Madden this year as I usually do, so this might be the first year I don't buy Madden. I've admitted that this doesn't make me hate EA, I'm disappointed, sure, because I like to argue with ESPN fanboys about which is better; I've said that more than I need to. I'm just providing some more details about how this all went down. If you don't like, don't quote it.