EA, Madden Face Lawsuit by Former NFL Players
Looks like John Madden may have hit retirement at just the right time. Madden, along with Electronic Arts, makers of the NFL game series that bears the former coach’s name, are about to be hit with a huge lawsuit. The suit claims that many players who were represented in the games have yet to make a dime off the multi-million selling installments.
Retired NFL players previously won a $28 million verdict against the NFL Players Association last fall when evidence of the union suggesting that EA scramble the identities of retired players to be “scrambled” was presented in court. What this meant was that the NFLPA diliberately tried to deny any royalties from being passed down to the players used in NFL videogames, particularly those from historical teams.
NFL retiree Bernie Perrish had this to say:
“The retired NFL players who were used in Madden EA video games will be suing Madden and EA for using us in those games without compensating us. Madden’s agent Sandy Montag boasts he and Madden collected over $100,000,000 in royalties while paying the retired NFL players used in those games absolutely nothing. Madden knows that the ugly truthful litigation is coming and is probably factoring that into his retirement. I doubt he wants to answer all those fans who will be asking, “Why, John Madden? Why did you screw all those retired players over, you seemed like such a friendly, good-natured buffoon?”
“No deals are going to be made because John Madden is moving his act to his home office where he will continue to screw over the retired players without having to face the fans around the country. Madden and Montag plan to continue licensing Madden without compensating retired players.”
We’ll keep you updated as this story develops.
[Source]
10 Responses to “EA, Madden Face Lawsuit by Former NFL Players”
Being a Raiders fan, I have to give John Madden the benefit of the doubt.
I would assume that EA has more to do with this than Madden. Madden only has his name licensed, he doesnt make decisions on the game like who gets paid royalties and whatnot. Think about it….
Exactly. This is the burden of buying the ENTIRE rights to everything and everyone within the NFL. There’s no way John Madden (a retired coach of all people) has anything to do with failure to compensate retired players.
stupid greedy motherfckers is all I have to say.
you lost me at $100,000,000 dollars…
I would think this has less to do with John Madden and more with whoever it was in the NFL head offices who singed the licensing rights of the players’ real names. Madden is only targeted because he’s the face of the game, regardless of the pictured MVP. I’m sure John Madden can afford a top notch litigator to argue this very point.
@yghtcrawlerR:
+2
haha@ Why did you screw all those retired players over, you seemed like such a friendly, good-natured buffoon?”
@Sneeches
THEY ARE FCKIN GREEDY WHORES!
This is the reason that games now cost so much. EA and the NFL should have known better but you know what this all about greed on all sides of the coin. It is also a fact of the legal system we have, Madden only licensed his name and as such made lots of Royalty off of it. Now these retired players are trying to “SHAME” him and his gaming franchise so that sales are impacted, they also want to recover money from all that have money to pay… How about the NFLPA that has oversight responsiblity for these contractual agreements where were they in the whole matter.
So what will happen is that Madden football will loose sales and then there will be no longer enough money to make royalty payments and then the developer will go out of business or other options move out of country to avoid suits conseqences…
Oh no it’s the old get rich quick play , let’s see what Madden uses for a good defense