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EA is forking out the big bucks to make its new football game franchise work.
Following the great Electronic Arts-FIFA breakup of 2022, EA has been wasting no time setting up its next big football game franchise. The first step? Getting its hands on the right football licenses and according to Sky, those don’t come cheap.
A recent Sky report says that, “20 Premier League clubs were briefed at a meeting on Friday a new six-year partnership with EA Sports worth about £488m is close to being finalised.” That’s a huge amount of money (around $588 million), but it would allow EA to actually use real-life English Premier League clubs in its future games - which is the only reason anyone ever picked up a FIFA game in the first place.
EA had previously announced that due to a disagreement with FIFA, its FIFA games will soon be replaced by a new game franchise called EA Sports FC. By scoring these rights, the publisher can now move forward with the next game knowing that it can include all 20 Premier League Clubs, thus allowing players to roleplay upcoming football seasons to their heart’s content.
EA previously described FIFA 23 as, “the only place where you can experience the competition, energy and excitement of the world’s most popular league,” with all 20 Premier League clubs coming, “complete with their 2022/23 kits and logos and an authentic broadcast, commentary, and pre-match choreography package.” One can safely expect EA Sports FC to be more of the same in this regard, with a few new game modes to make up for the loss of FIFA.
Sky claims that this new deal is, “worth more than double the existing deal involving the two parties,” allowing EA to remain as the league’s lead partner and retain an exclusive license to make games based on the league. This also won't be the last deal EA will have to make on the road to EA Sports FC’s release, but the publisher has more than enough money in the tank to make it work.
The Premier League is on the top of the food chain when it comes to hosting the world’s most iconic and popular football clubs. That includes big names like Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United, just to name a few. Football fans will flock to any game that can accurately replicate the roster, kits and logos of these clubs, and EA knows it.