Running Head: EA SPORTS MADDEN NFL FOOTBALL CASE STUDY
EA Sports Madden NFL Football
Case Study on Branding
Zack Ryle
Western Kentucky University
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II. Abstract
This case study focuses on the video game franchise produced by Electronic
Arts (EA) Sports entitled Madden NFL Football. This series began in 1984 as a concept and has now been produced for 25 years. This video game has grown from just another game on the shelf to the dominant sport video game brand in its 25 years of existence. In this case study, I will look into how a video game became such a success and what branding strategies were used to ensure the constant success the franchise has seen. From delving in to the brand’s namesake John Madden, to the tagline of “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game” and even the ‘Madden Curse,’ nothing is off limits as I dig deep into what branding strategies the brain trust at EA
Sports and Madden NFL Football have used to make their franchise one of, if not the, preeminent video game (and not just sport video game) franchises in the world.
III. EA Sports began pursuing the idea of a professional football video game franchise in 1984. At this time, EA Sports approached former NFL Head Coach and commentator John Madden on being the voice and the brand for the video game franchise. In 1984, Madden declined, but 5 years later, Madden agreed to put his name and voice with the game franchise as long as the game was more realistic.
This was the birth of the EA Sports Madden NFL Football franchise.
The game created in 1989 would barely recognize itself today if it looked in the mirror. The game that was technologically advanced with getting 22 players onto the field now has the most realistic players in the video game industry. (Below is a picture from the 1989 game and a picture from the 25 th anniversary edition of the game, both courtesy USA Today .)

EA SPORTS MADDEN NFL FOOTBALL CASE STUDY
Madden has grown during the years, as is evident in the pictures above. The
3 game has moved from Sega to PlayStation to X-Box and will soon be moving to X-
Box One and PlayStation 4. With each move, the game has become more realistic, to the point of where someone could walk into the room and ask if they are watching a live game or playing a video game.
While Madden has moved seamlessly from game console to new game consoles, the game itself has changed. The first major addition to the game came with Madden 96, where a user was able to create himself or herself as a player. This allowed for the first bit of real user creativity and connectivity within the game.
1996 was a banner year for the Madden NFL 97 game as the developers at EA
Sports created “The Franchise” mode. This is the first year that users had to stay within a salary cap in the managing of their team. The franchise mode has become one of the hallmarks of the game and has since grown to include moving the team from a location, the NFL Draft, and hiring and firing personnel, to name a few.
The next major milestone for the franchise came in 2002 when Madden 03 allowed for the ability to play head-to-head online. While there were obviously some changes that needed to be made to the online play (which USA Today writer
Brett Molina said meant playing against Marshall Faulk and the Rams over and over again), this marked a significant moment as you could now play on a gaming system with anyone in the world.
The final major addition came in 2005 with Madden NFL 2006, which created the Superstar mode. This mode allowed players to not only create themselves, but allowed them to play solely as themselves from their rookie year to their retirement.

EA SPORTS MADDEN NFL FOOTBALL CASE STUDY
This part of the game has seen several adaptations, and has since been merged with
4 the EA Sports NCAA Football franchise to allow players to seemingly create a player from high school all the way through to their NFL retirement.
The aforementioned additions are not the only upgrades the series has seen.
Additions like the hit stick, truck stick, improved tackling controls, the passing cone, and IQ tests should not be overlooked. Each one of these upgrades made the game more realistic and has helped to play a part in EA Sports keeping the NFL and ESPN exclusivity deals.
Madden NFL is not the only video game created by EA Sports in the pro football realm though. EA Sports also put out two editions of the NFL Head Coach series. This series allowed for a user to be the owner, general manager, or head coach of their team and manage every business decision a typical owner, GM, or coach would make. This game did not focus as much on the game, although it is a part of the game, but focused more on the behind the scenes elements, like hiring/firing, the NFL draft and more. In Madden NFL 25, the franchise mode includes an owner mode, which is very similar to that of the NFL Head Coach series.
To add a personal connection to this game, I actually found the NFL Head Coach series to be much more enjoyable than the Madden series. With increased power to the game (it ran a little slow at times), I believe this game could have been a mainstay for EA Sports.
Other adaptations of the game include the Madden Arcade game, which takes the best 10 players from each of the 32 teams and plays 5-on-5 games. The game has also branched over to the real world, and can be seen during the Super Bowl

EA SPORTS MADDEN NFL FOOTBALL CASE STUDY week. EA Sports has hosted the Madden Bowl each year since 1995. The Madden
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Bowl is a single elimination tournament that is played by professional football players to show their skills on “the sticks.” This past year, the NFL Rookies team took out the champions from the previous Madden Bowl. Following that game, the
NFL Rookies team, made up of AJ Green, TJ Richardson, and Doug Martin, lost to the incoming draft class team of Denard Robinson, Kenjon Barner and EJ Manual.
During this same party, which has grown from a few players in a room to a large event, a simulation is done on the Super Bowl matchup. Last year, the game predicted a 24 to 17 Ravens win, and the final score of the game ended up being 34 to 31 Baltimore. This use of simulation to predict real life situations was not first used here though, as many of the sport shows on ESPN have incorporated the game to better show what analysts are talking about.
The game has now expanded into the realm of social media as well. The developers at EA Sports have now created two games for Facebook, which includes the Madden NFL 13 Social game as well as the Madden 12 Superstars game. The
Madden Superstars and the Madden social games are basically trading card games, where you play your trading cards at each position against another team’s cards and whoever wins earns points to collect better cards. The game that is played to earn points is done via simulation, so no gameplay takes place. The other Facebook game available to a user is the NFL Mobile game, which allows for actual gameplay to occur from your smart phone or tablet. This is a really large step for EA Sports, as they head into the world of mobile. The average rating for the game is 4.4 stars, but the main drawback for the mobile game comes from the amount of data needed to

EA SPORTS MADDEN NFL FOOTBALL CASE STUDY run the game if not in WI-FI connection. While this section is not brief, it is important to know the extent of the EA Sports Madden NFL franchise’s reach as we move into some challenges the franchise has faced in its history.
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IV. Madden has not always been the only professional football game on the market. From 1999 to 2005, Madden had competition from Visual Concepts and
Sega Sports game series NFL 2K. Each year, Visual Concepts would release a game each year (NFL 2K, NFL 2K1, NFL 2K2, etc.). The two game giants were close in price until 2004, when Sega signed a deal with Take-Two Interactive to co-produce their ESPN series. This would normally not make news, but this deal allowed for the
NFL 2K series to be sold at $19.99, a full $30 under the normal asking price for the
Madden series.
Madden executives knew this was a problem and immediately began working on a solution that would make their company the sole company in the professional football video game world. In December of 2004, EA Sports and the
NFL reached a deal that made EA Sports the only gaming franchise allowed to use
NFL teams and the NFL brand. This deal was originally set to end in 2009, and has since been extended twice, to the end of the 2013-2014 year (this year). In my humble opinion, I do not see the NFL changing suit, as the deal has been lucrative for both EA Sports and the league.
EA Sports executives did not stop with a deal with the NFL, but they continued working until they had worked out a deal with ESPN. This deal, signed in
2005, allowed for no other video game franchise to use ESPN or their brand for 15 years. Not only did this basically put the 2K franchise out of business, but it also

EA SPORTS MADDEN NFL FOOTBALL CASE STUDY 7 assured that for all the productions EA Sports produces, that the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” would be on their side.
Another example of a challenge EA Sports has faced with Madden is The
Madden Curse. The Madden Curse began as a joke, grew to folk lore, and, due to its pretty consistent historical trail, has become at the very least common knowledge among NFL teams, players and fans. Ryan Fleming of Digitaltrends.com wrote an historical story on the Madden Curse where he breaks down year by year who has been on the cover of Madden since 1999, which was the first year a player (Garrison
Hearst of the San Francisco 49ers) was featured on the cover of Madden.
Fleming’s piece goes on to show that every year except one, something bad has occurred, ranging from the level of not playing to the previous year’s standards or the team not making the playoffs to a catastrophic injury that sidelines the player for foreseeably the rest of their career. In fact, last year was the first year that a
Madden Cover athlete had a good year, when Calvin Johnson broke or tied nine records.
With the presumed curse lurking, rumors are that players began turning down EA Sports to be the cover of the game. In 2008, LaDanian Tomlinson turned down the offer from EA Sports citing a weak financial offer, but many began to wonder if more players would turn down the video game giant.
EA Sports pulled a rabbit out of their hat when they decided to put the cover athlete up to a vote in 2012. Each team had a representative in the bracket of 32 and the fans were allowed to vote round by round for which they thought should be the winner. This eased much of the pressure on EA Sports, as no player would make

EA SPORTS MADDEN NFL FOOTBALL CASE STUDY the negative PR move of turning down something the fans around the nation collectively voted on. In 2012, Peyton Hillis was selected, and since then, Hillis has been on three different teams and has yet to have a good year. The fan voting was
8 bad news for Hillis, but great news for EA Sports.
V. The first major branding strategy used by Electronic Arts was to acquire John
Madden as their cover man, announcer, and overall brand. This sounds obvious, but before Madden agreed to be the cover man, there was no foreseeable brand for the
Madden NFL series. To understand the brand, one must first understand Mr.
Madden himself. John Madden was a college football standout and was drafted in
1958 by the Philadelphia Eagles. Unfortunately for Mr. Madden’s professional playing career (but fortunate for his later pursuits), Mr. Madden injured his knee in training camp and never had the chance to play professionally. Mr. Madden then moved into coaching, which is where he really made a name for himself. Madden coached for several collegiate teams before landing a job as the Linebackers Coach in 1967 for the Oakland Raiders. Madden stayed in this position for one short year.
On February 4, 1969, Al Davis hired the 32 year old Madden as the Raiders’
Head Coach. According to the Pro Football Hall of Fame Madden is the seventh youngest Head Coach in NFL history at 32 years and 10 months. During his professional career, John Madden amassed a 103 win and 32 loss record during his
10 year stint with the Raiders. During that time, he made the post season every year with the exception of the 1971 and 1978 seasons. His postseason struggles are well documented, as Madden lost in the playoffs each of his first 6 attempts, with 5 of those coming in the AFC Championship game. In 1976, Madden and the Raiders

EA SPORTS MADDEN NFL FOOTBALL CASE STUDY finally won the Super Bowl over the Minnesota Vikings by a score of 32 to 14.
Madden retired from coaching two years later.
Madden did not wait very long to enter his next career venture, which is what most people in this generation know him to be. From 1979 to 2009, Madden worked as a color commentator and analyst for all four of the major networks, which are CBS, ABC, Fox, and NBC. Madden worked with Pat Summerall from 1981 to the 2002-2003 season. This is important to note, because the two also worked together as the voices for Madden NFL Football from 1994 to 2002. Following the
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2002 season, Madden moved to the ABC’s Monday Night Football game with longtime play-by-play man Al Michaels.
Madden has been the key to the game’s success and I believe seeing
Madden’s history allows one to understand why the game has succeeded. From player to coach to commentator, Madden was the perfect selection to be the face and brand of the franchise.
John Madden was the overwhelming brand of the game, but there are other brands that are incorporated into the game. Jason Lee and Galen Clavio point out the phrase “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game” as a key branding point to the game’s success. One of the key points to John Madden sticking with the franchise was making sure the game was as realistic as possible. When I was growing up, I always remember turning on the games EA Sports made and seeing the EA Sports logo.
Shortly after the logo appeared on the screen, a deep male voice came on the screen and said, “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game.” My brother and I would mock the voice every time it came on, but I never gave much thought to the tagline until I

EA SPORTS MADDEN NFL FOOTBALL CASE STUDY began working on this case study. The tagline really should be broken down into
10 two parts, what comes before the comma (If it’s in the game) and what comes after the comma (it’s in the game).
If it’s in the game refers to the professional game that takes place on Sunday,
Monday or Thursday. EA Sports goal was to provide the most realistic game possible for their fans. To do that, they must become one with the game that occurs on the field. John Madden once mentioned that it was easy to go for it on fourth down and convert on the game, when in real life, your chance of success is much smaller. One of EA Sports greatest adaptations to the game was to create Artificial
Intelligence, which takes into account areas from player knowledge (with Peyton
Manning being near the top of the game) to realistic stats (like less likely to convert special teams trick plays and fourth down.) Even today as Madden is retired, he still consults with the EA Sports brain trust to go over the realistic aspects of the game.
All of this starts with before the comma, but affects the product after the comma, the video game itself. That’s what the phrase and the brand “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game” means. If it happens on the field of play, it happens in the video game.
While those preceding two strategies (John Madden and the tagline) are the main branding strategies, this does not mean other strategies are not used. The next branding move is less of a strategy and more of a consequence of the game, but it does work for Madden NFL Football’s success. This “strategy” is the video game piggybacking off the success of the National Football League.
In the past year alone, record numbers of viewers are tuning into televisions across America to watch NFL football. In the opening weekend alone, over 108.4

EA SPORTS MADDEN NFL FOOTBALL CASE STUDY million viewers tuned in to watch 32 teams take battle. In years past, nearly 105
11 million viewers tuned into games on opening weekend, which makes 2013 even more impressive. Even more impressive, this year’s Chiefs and Eagles Thursday
Night Football game pulled over 9.4 million viewers in and had a US household rating of 6.0. The game was broadcast on NFL Network and outdrew NBC’s finale of
The Million Second Quiz and Fox’s The X-Factor.
These are all important considerations to make as I make the case that the success of the NFL is vital to the success of the Madden NFL video game franchise. If the NFL were to struggle with viewership, sales in the video game may also start to fall off. With continued success from the NFL games, it is only reasonable to say the video game will have the opportunity to grow as well. The success of the National
Football League alone will not be enough to allow the video game to grow, but it will allow for the video game to continue to make innovations and continue reaching new consumers each and every year.
Another branding opportunity for the branding of this video game franchise came when EA Sports introduced the phrase “Maddenoliday” to the world in 2006.
In that year, the residents of Madden, Mississippi received a surprise when EA
Sports gave copies to all fans to celebrate the release of Madden NFL 2007. For years, fans rushed to their local electronics stores to get the latest copy of Madden, but the day took on a new meaning when EA Sports started Maddenoliday. EA
Sports began printing excuses for work that stated employees should be excused from work in order to obtain the Madden video game and play the game. This

EA SPORTS MADDEN NFL FOOTBALL CASE STUDY creation of a holiday is another example of the branding power and prowess of EA
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Sports.
One of the final major branding strategies is done through the Madden franchise’s use of social media. While this has become commonplace for many businesses, the Madden Franchise has used social media to not only push their
Madden video game, but to expand their presence in many other ways. Some of the ways included in this were mentioned earlier in this case study (Madden social games in both 2012 and 2013), but they also use the real life games to connect with their fan base, which is the most important thing a company can do with their social media presence.
VI. The preceding section all focused on the branding strategies the Madden NFL franchise has used to further itself. This section of this case study will focus on the results of each of the branding strategies. The first strategy I brought to light was
John Madden as the cover, voice, and brand for the video game. I believe the results speak for themselves as every year, millions of video game and sport enthusiasts head to local stores or order online to get their copy of the latest Madden NFL video game. The brand itself may be better known than that of the video game producer
Electronic Arts Sports. For the most recent perspective when it comes to the amount of games sold, Madden NFL 25 (this year’s game) sold more than one million copies in the first week of its release. This is down from years past, but as
Alexandra Mangen of Gaming Illustrated points out, it’s way too early to count the game out just yet.

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“It was the number one selling game in North America for the month of August, gamers played 6 million hours of Madden it’s first week and opened 3.3 million Ultimate Team packs, also it’s first week…All this news about disappointing NFL 25 sales seems a bit premature. EA’s stocks took a hit, really? While the gaming industry does tend to measure success by week one sales, it’s tough to whip out the yardstick when a game releases between console generations. Ultimately, despite selling “only” 1 million copies it’s first week, EA will be laughing all the way to the bank when this game releases on next-gen consoles.”
The second branding strategy is the phrase “If It’s In The Game, It’s In The
Game.” The game changes each year as EA Sports and the Madden brain trust listen to what the players, coaches and fans want in the newest edition of the game. Not only does the game listen to what the fans want, but they also listen to the game’s namesake, John Madden. In this story with ESPN, John Madden was talking to
Madden NFL Football playbook guru Anthony White about some changes he thought were necessary.
"Let me ask," Madden said. "When we get into the spread, the quarterback in shotgun, do the linemen get in three-point stances?"
“In some sets,” White said. “But largely in two point.”
"They should all be in two-point stances," Madden admonished.
These kinds of tweaks and changes from year to year are what allow the brand to continue to stay on top of the video game industry. Other additions to the game that go along with this part of the branding strategy would be up to the minute

EA SPORTS MADDEN NFL FOOTBALL CASE STUDY 14 updates. A perfect example of this would be Bobby Rainey. Bobby has moved from the Baltimore Ravens, to the Cleveland Browns and then to the Tampa Bay
Buccaneers. The WKU alum also saw his overall skill increase to a 74 following his massive Week 11 game where he scored three touchdowns. These types of updates keep Madden NFL Football players up to date and allow for the games to be as realistic as possible to those that occur on the field of play. Other updates over the years include advanced artificial intelligences, which makes things easier or more difficult based on the setting of the user and the team you are playing with.
The results of the piggybacking from the National Football League’s success are a little more difficult to define than some of the aforementioned strategies.
What makes this branding strategy so difficult to track is the fact that few official polls have been conducted in regards to the amount of NFL fans that purchase the game as opposed to video game fans that purchase the game. If put in terms of a
Venn Diagram, there will be some who buy the game just based off the video game play, others will buy it because they are a fan of a team or the league and enjoy playing video games. The number we are looking for would be on the left side and would be those who bought the game purely off of their fandom with the league, a team, or a player.
Maddenoliday is the fourth branding strategy discussed in this case study, and its success is much like that of the third strategy. What I mean by this is that tracking the results is a very difficult task to take. As discussed earlier in this section, the number of those individuals buying Madden in the first week of release is still topping the charts among video game releases. So in that sense, the

EA SPORTS MADDEN NFL FOOTBALL CASE STUDY
Maddenoliday really did take off. People use the term quite widely today; so EA
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Sports can count that as a branding and marketing win. The loss comes in the fact that employers did not take it seriously. I don’t believe EA Sports and the brain trust at Madden NFL Football ever thought employers would take excuse notes seriously, but you do have to give the team their dues for trying something out of the box and creative to get people to go buy their game. And as a side note, I personally know several people who take off a day or two for Madden NFL Football each year.
The final branding strategies are tied into the social media of Madden NFL
Football. The number of likes and followers are not astronomical for a business.
The Facebook page for Madden has over 4.7 million likes with more than 100,000 people “talking” or interacting with their page daily. The Madden NFL Football
Twitter account has over 150,000 followers. The 4.7 million likes and 150,000 followers mean little to me. I have come to realize in the business world the real number that matters is the number of people interacting with your page. The fact that 100,000 people are interacting, or commenting, liking, sharing, or using a post on Facebook means the company is connecting with people.
How has Madden kept that many people engaged? They follow their tag line and use the real life game to drive people to the video game online. There most recent posts circulate on current action in the NFL with screenshots in most cases of action from the newest video game. This type of collaboration with the NFL allows for unparalleled creativity and connectivity with fans by really using the middle portion of the Venn Diagram (talked about above). Connecting with these fans

EA SPORTS MADDEN NFL FOOTBALL CASE STUDY 16 bridges the gaps between the true NFL or team fans and those who are fans of video games alone.
Overall, Madden NFL Football is a phenomenal business specimen to examine when breaking down branding patterns and strategies. The amount of marketing and branding genius that has come about from this video game over the past 25 years is truly remarkable. Their team turned a curse into an honor with the fan vote. The team also made a commentator and former coach into something much bigger, while in turn, using his knowledge and expertise to make their game more than it could have been on it’s own. This type of collaboration is rare to find in the business world and even more rare to find in the video game or sport world.
This is why I chose the Madden Case Study and why I believe the Madden game will continue to bring innovative changes to the sport gaming industry. In 25 years from now, I can picture Madden much differently than it is today. I see my children and me in a living room with some sort of a television device on the wall. My son will hike me the ball and begin blocking a very large nose tackle for the Pittsburgh
Steelers. I will fake a handoff to my wife who will run out in the flats. Then I will hit my other son on a streak as he jukes by two defenders into the end zone, all while standing in our living room. Does this sound a little crazy? Well maybe it is just a little on the deep side, but who would have thought 25 years ago we would have lifelike images doing moves that only Adrian Peterson can pull off while scampering into the end zone, and then doing a patented touchdown dance to boot. I guarantee you the creators who were busy making block formed men and ambulances that drove across the field to pick up injured players were dreaming of days like today.

EA SPORTS MADDEN NFL FOOTBALL CASE STUDY
And I bet those same creators, or their new counterparts, are dreaming of the next
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25 years in NFL Madden Football future. I think it all could happen because “If it’s in the game, It’s in the game."

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Calhoun, B. (2013, May 9). Madden NFL 25 Review: Football fans know what to
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EA Sports. (n.d.). Madden NFL Football. Retrieved from EA Sports: http://www.easports.com/madden-nfl
Fleming, R. (2013, August 16). ‘Madden’ turns 25 this month, so here’s a brief history
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Hruby, P. (2005, August 9). Better than Christmas. Retrieved from ESPN Page 2: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hruby/050809&num=0
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Kuo, L. C. (2006, August 22). Electronic Arts Celebrates "Maddenoliday". Retrieved from Game Spy: http://xbox360.gamespy.com/xbox-360/madden-nfl-
07/727214p1.html
Mangren, A. (2013, Sept. 10). Madden NFL 25: It's a Numbers Game. Retrieved from
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3-getting-in-the-game/

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Snider, M. (2013, August 25). 'Madden NFL' video game crosses 25-year goal line.
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Wikipedia. (n.d.). John Madden. Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Madden
Wikipedia. (n.d.). Madden NFL. Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madden_NFL