May 4, 2007 - The NFL treated a group of writers to a tour of their offices in New York the week of the draft, and while we were there, Tim Langley, the manager of consumer products for the league and the man behind the infamous EA Sports exclusivity deal agreed to answer a few questions from the pool of journalists. Here is what he had to say…
On what the NFL would like to see improved in Madden… "A lot of it are simply tweaks. Feedback coming from our guys who review our rulebook day in and day out, something as benign as this official should be positioned a little closer to the sideline on these particular plays or just some obscure calls with respect to punts or field goals. They are pretty much that, they are tweaks because they do the game, EA does the game fantastically well for us and we're just there, again, to make it as close to what's happening on the field as possible."
On why the NFL went with the exclusive license… "It was a decision in the making and we really explored all options with all of our partners at the time, probably some folks who weren't partners at the time, and I can't get into specifics, but when it was all said and done, we gave everyone who we were licensed with an opportunity to work with us. In the end, the decision was to work with EA."
On what the benefit is to having an exclusive deal… "I think the one great benefit is that it awarded both us and EA to just sort of have access, and I think unprecedented access to some of what we can offer to the game itself. When we had multiple partners, sometimes it was very difficult to be sure that everyone was being treated fairly, especially if a specific request came in from one licensee over another. We wanted to be fair, but we also had to treat with respect, the person coming to us with the request. Having EA as our partner now, we're able to I think dig a little deeper into what we can offer. All of the tapes the teams submit (to the league after each game), the high angle shots, offensive, defensive, etcetera, every week when the games end, when the last game occurs on Monday night, all those team deliver their tapes to NFL Films and everything is put on hard drives and sent out to the 32 teams. There's actually a 33rd team now, and that's EA. They get those tapes the same times our teams do each week so they can then analyze every play that's going on, look at them and see new wrinkles, new offensive and defensive formations that teams may have, different plays, different personnel, and how those affect the plays. No doubt those are used for the next version of Madden."
On whether having only one partner makes the job easier or more complicated… "I think it's made it much more difficult…and that's not a bad thing. It's just a much bigger partnership now, and as all you guys know, the number of games we sell make it a big, big thing here in the office, much bigger than it was seven or eight years ago. The partnership alone brings with it a lot more with respect to sponsorship and a lot more interaction with all of our departments. There's not a single department here in the office that doesn't have some sort of touch point with EA and that includes game operations and officiating."
On where videogames rank in terms of bringing in money to the NFL… "I can't give you specifics except to say that our consumer products group is divided into apparel and hardlines. Apparel is essentially Reebok and a few other partners who do outerwear or what have you. Hardlines is everything else. It's trading cards, collectibles, videogames, tailgate product, automotive product, pet product, you name it. EA is certainly our biggest partner far and away on the hardline side. They are our largest in terms of revenue produced at retail."
On what is going to determine whether or not the NFL renews its agreement with EA in the future or if they will open discussions back up to other publishers… "I don't think we have a clear answer right now on what is going to determine it. Right now, if we were to evaluate what is going on, we're thrilled to death with the partnership we have with EA. We still have a couple of years left on the deal and we are going full steam ahead with them."
On how close they monitor the content in the games… "We've always monitored our games, whether it's EA's games or other games in the past. We monitor it. We don't want to sanitize it to the point where it's overkill, but we want to make sure it's something that anyone in our building will be comfortable with. And not just anyone in our building, but their sons and daughters or aunts and uncles who play the game. Certainly we want it to be E rated, there's no reason we wouldn't want it to be, but we also want to make sure that anything in there is not disparaging to any of our players for example. So if there is taunting in the game, we want to have our limits as well. We want to make sure there aren't players completely talking down to other players. Examples from going way back, I've seen audio copy from other past partners that speak to one player talking about ending the career of another player by going out and trying to get concussions on the field. That's the stuff we won't put up with."
On the stuff that is said in real life compared to the content allowed in the game… "Sometimes there are things said that a microphone picks up, and I'm not just talking about expletives, it's just something a little too negative. It happens. We're not going to say that never happens. We're never going to say that everything that's said on the field is squeaky clean. But when it comes to a licensed product where we have the ability to make sure everything is good, we have the time, we have the opportunity to make those decisions about what is going to stay, what's not going to stay."
On why classic teams in the game can't use authentic players… "All I'll say is this: We as the NFL certainly can't license a lot of the former players. The Players Association has certain deals in place with particular retired players. As you know, there are a number of Hall of Famers within Madden as well, there is a Hall of Fame deal in place, and at the end of the day, those three things combined can't always touch on every player who is out there. When it comes to licensed deals and legally what can and can't happen, there are certain things we just can't do, and one of them is if we don't have rights to the player, we can't have replication on the field so to speak in the game that's so distinctly unique to that player that it makes it brutally obvious that what we're trying to do is put a guy on the field that we don't have the rights to and just make it look like that person. We can't do that. There's certain legal limitations to that and we're careful to allow what's allowed and not allow what's not allowed."
On whether or not the NFL influences who goes on the Madden cover… "We certainly have discussions with EA about who is on the cover. I think EA does a fantastic job of defining criteria for who should be on the cover already. We certainly know before it's announced and we certainly have the opportunity to voice our input, but I honestly can't tell you a single time where they came to us with: 'Here's who we want on the cover' and we had a problem with it. I think they've always been very good decisions."
http://sports.ign.com/articles/785/785850p1.html
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