Actually. EA has the exclusive rights to the NFL for like 10 years. EA and ESPN (the cable channel) teamed up for like a 15 year deal. Madden's contract was up after the 2005 game. So the next game will be "EA Sports ESPN NFL 2005" .. as far as i can tell. Which woudl seriously kick ass, as EA was the better game, but ESPN was the better presented game. (not to sound like i know it all, but NFL is my passion
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Cool, I didn't know Madden's contact was up this year (or is that last year, can never remember how those work with the year'd off game titles).
Unfortunately for me, I really was impressed with ESPN NFL and NHL (considered them way superior to the EA games of 2004), and hate to see Sega loose the license. But this is a debate that has gone on here already, so no need to restart it. Just am sad to see the license leave Sega. Hopefully Sega puts out the sports games under a different license, maybe Fox or TSN, etc.
Anyway thx for the info.