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EA Sports

If it's in the game, it's in the game

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EA Sports is Electronic Arts' sports label. It began in 1991 as EASN, the Electronic Arts Sports Network, a line of games presented like television sport; after ESPN objected to the name and logo, EA renamed it EA Sports in early 1993. Built on John Madden Football and its console sequels, then NHL Hockey, FIFA and NBA Live, it grew into yearly licensed series, added Ultimate Team in 2009, lost the FIFA licence in 2022 and became one of EA's two divisions in 2023.

EA’s sports label began as an imitation of a television channel. In 1991 Electronic Arts gathered its American football, hockey, basketball and golf games under the name EASN, the Electronic Arts Sports Network, and sold them on the promise of instant replays, camera angles, commentary and half-time shows. The real sports network, ESPN, thought the logo looked too much like its own. EA changed the name to EA Sports, and by the spring of 1993 its adverts carried the line the label still uses: “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game.”

Fast facts

  • Launched: 1991, as EASN (Electronic Arts Sports Network); renamed EA Sports in early 1993.
  • Parent: Electronic Arts.
  • Slogan: “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game”, usually shortened to “It’s in the game”.
  • First series: John Madden Football (Apple II, late 1980s; Genesis and Mega Drive version, 1990), NHL Hockey (1991), FIFA International Soccer (1993), NBA Live 95 (1994).
  • Later history: the EA Sports Big label (2000), FIFA Ultimate Team (2009), the end of the FIFA licence (2022), and a division of its own within EA (2023).

Madden first

The label grew out of one game that took years to make. In May 1987 Computer Gaming World expected “John Madden Football” to be the third title in EA’s Sports Legend series, “but EA is giving no projected ship date”. Early in 1989 the magazine still called it “long awaited”. It appeared first for the Apple II, and Computer Gaming World’s 1989 round-up of football games found that “Apple II owners will be impressed with what their 64K machines can do”. The Apple and IBM versions cost $49.95. The game rated every player from nought to nine, took plays from Madden’s old Oakland Raiders playbook, and let the player draw new ones on a “Chalkboard”; it was, the magazine said, “an excellent choice for those who want both action and strategy elements in a computer football game”.

The version that made EA’s name on consoles came next. EA had reverse-engineered Sega’s Genesis, as the Mega Drive was called in America, before it negotiated a licence in 1990, and the Electronic Arts entry tells that story. By December 1990 EA was advertising John Madden Football for the Genesis in Sega Visions, and Mean Machines was reviewing the Mega Drive cartridge in Britain. EA’s football, hockey and basketball games for the machine became the core of the new label.

The Electronic Arts Sports Network

Game Informer announced the idea to its readers in November 1991. “Most true sports enthusiasts are familiar with the letters ESPN,” it began. EASN was “a line or ‘network’ of sports games that give you the feel of live television coverage”, with “instant replays, special camera angles, pro commentary and game highlights”, real teams, and “plays right out of John Madden’s playbook”. EA’s advert for John Madden Football ’92 on the Genesis the following month sold the same thing: “EASN gives you better coverage than a nickel defense. The latest sack dance. Touchdown boogies. Injuries. Penalties.” It promised an EASN half-time show too, and EA’s advert for NHL Hockey in the same issue pointed out that “the same guys who tackled Madden designed NHL Hockey”.

ESPN did not like it. In December 1992 Amazing Computing reported that the network had “finally noticed EA’s use of the ‘Electronic Arts Sports Network (EASN)’ logo on all their sports games”, and was annoyed because “it looks a whole lot like their logo”. By March 1993 the two companies had settled. According to Amazing Computing, EA had to change the name and “agreed to advertise its games heavily on ESPN”; the Italian magazine K reported the same terms the same month, adding that the new name was “un più semplice EA Sports”, a simpler EA Sports.

“If it’s in the game”

The new name came with a new pitch. In May 1993 EA Sports advertised its Super Nintendo games in Britain under the heading “EA Sports brings you” Bulls vs Blazers and the NBA Playoffs, NHLPA Hockey ’93, John Madden Football ’93 and PGA Tour Golf. They sold, the advert claimed, “because as we say at EA ‘If it’s in the game, it’s in the game.’” It went on: “No messing with the rules to make life simpler. No make-believe teams or venues. No made up moves to add so-called excitement.” The same advert ran in Australia that August, and German adverts that spring for Michael Jordan in Flight carried the slogan in English. By 1996 EA was printing it in its American adverts as a registered trademark.

FIFA and the licences

In December 1993 EA Sports released FIFA International Soccer for the Mega Drive, developed by Extended Play. Edge gave it eight out of ten and liked its sound most of all: a shot that hit the crossbar made the crowd’s roar turn “immediately and seamlessly” into a moan. In late 1994 NBA Live 95 followed for basketball. Real leagues, players and venues, the promise of the 1993 advert, became the business. In early 2005 the National Football League gave EA five years’ exclusive rights to make console and handheld games with its teams and players, and the FIFA licence ran for about 30 years before EA and football’s governing body parted in 2022. From 2023 the football series has been called EA Sports FC.

Big, and Ultimate Team

Not everything under the label wore a licence. In 2000 EA launched EA Sports Big, a range of “extreme” sports games that began with the snowboarding game SSX. Edge found SSX “oddly laden with enthusiasm and personality, bereft of the corporate franchise feel that marks the interminable Madden and FIFA series”.

The label’s most profitable idea came later. FIFA Ultimate Team, Edge explained in 2010, was “a downloadable add-on to the boxed versions of FIFA 09 and FIFA 10, allowing players to build up fantasy squads of the world’s best players”. Players could earn new players by winning online, “but they can also purchase booster packs to quickly build their rosters — a classic freemium strategy, but one that’s hidden within a piece of DLC”.

In June 2023 Electronic Arts reorganised itself into two groups, EA Entertainment and EA Sports, so the label that began as a borrowed television idea is now half of the company.

Sources

  • Computer Gaming World issue 37, May 1987, news: John Madden Football as the third Sports Legend title, no ship date.
  • Computer Gaming World issue 56, February 1989, winter show report: “the long awaited John Madden Football”.
  • Computer Gaming World issue 58, April 1989: John Madden Football “originally released for the 64K Apple II series”, the ratings, the Raiders playbook and the Chalkboard.
  • Computer Gaming World issue 64, October 1989, p. 26: football games round-up (Apple II and IBM, $49.95; “Apple II owners will be impressed”; “an excellent choice”).
  • Game Informer issue 1, 1991: NHL Hockey review. Issue 2, November 1991: “EASN: Your Sports Cart Connection”.
  • Sega Visions vol. 1 no. 7, December 1991: EA advertisement for John Madden Football ’92 (EASN coverage and half-time show); EA advertisement for NHL Hockey (“the same guys who tackled Madden”).
  • Sega Visions vol. 1 no. 3, December 1990: EA advertisement for John Madden Football on the Genesis. Mean Machines issue 3, December 1990: review of John Madden’s Football for the Mega Drive.
  • Retro Gamer issue 105, August 2012, p. 30: EA history (EA Sports formed in 1991 as EASN, “an unsubtle play on ESPN”).
  • Amazing Computing vol. 7 no. 12, December 1992: ESPN’s objection to the EASN logo. Vol. 8 no. 3, March 1993: the settlement (the name change, EA to advertise on ESPN).
  • K (Italy) issue 48, March 1993, news: the settlement between Electronic Arts and ESPN; the label renamed EA Sports.
  • Nintendo Magazine System (UK) issue 8, May 1993: EA Sports advertisement (“If it’s in the game, it’s in the game”; “No make-believe teams or venues”). Nintendo Magazine System (Australia) issue 5, August 1993: the same advertisement. PC Player (Germany), May 1993: EA Sports advertisement for Michael Jordan in Flight.
  • Computer Gaming World issue 145, August 1996: EA Sports advertisement with “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game” as a registered trademark of Electronic Arts.
  • Edge issue 3, December 1993: FIFA International Soccer review (Mega Drive; developer Extended Play; UK release December; 8/10).
  • Nintendo Power issue 66, November 1994: NBA Live 95 (EA Sports).
  • Electronic Gaming Monthly issue 189, March 2005, “Only Game in Town”: the exclusive NFL licence.
  • “EA blows the final whistle on 30-year FIFA partnership”, TechRadar, 10 May 2022 (web, secondary): the end of the FIFA licence and the EA Sports FC name. https://www.techradar.com/news/ea-blows-the-final-whistle-on-30-year-fifa-partnership
  • Edge issue 91, December 2000: SSX review (EA Sports Big; “bereft of the corporate franchise feel”).
  • Edge issue 219, October 2010: EA feature (FIFA Ultimate Team as an add-on to FIFA 09 and FIFA 10; booster packs).
  • “EA Entertainment and EA Sports: what Electronic Arts’ restructuring means”, Game World Observer, 21 June 2023 (web, secondary). https://gameworldobserver.com/2023/06/21/ea-entertainment-ea-sports-restructuring-electronic-arts

See also

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