Electronic Arts recently secured a deal with Disney to exclusively develop future Star Wars games, but it looks like they have also secured a pretty big licensing agreement for its FIFA brand.
EA announced they have closed another licensing deal with the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) to extend their existing agreement until the end of 2022, which means EA Sports’ titles will continue to have exclusive rights to both the FIFA brand and FIFA World Cup name.
“EA SPORTS released the first FIFA-branded soccer game in 1993, and 20 years later our partnership with FIFA continues to be very strong,” said Andrew Wilson, Executive Vice President and Head of EA SPORTS. “Our franchise has become the benchmark for quality and innovation in the sports videogame genre, and we look forward to many more years of connecting with consumers around the world with our games carrying the prestigious FIFA name.”
FIFA isn’t the only sports association EA has reached a licensing agreement with as Frank Gibeau, executive vice president at EA, said in a conference call with analysts the company has signed the PGA Tour, NHL, and NHL Players Association as well. This makes EA quite the juggernaut in the sports video game world as they also already have long-term agreements with the NFL, NFLPA, NBA, CLC and UFC. What they don’t seem to have at this point is a licensing deal with a Ping Pong association, making table tennis video games pretty much open season for any and all comers.
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