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EA denies NFL lawsuit rumors

by Ben Gilbert on Apr 25th 2009 2:30PM

Responding to questions regarding allegations made by retired NFL player Bernie Parrish, perennial Madden publisher, EA, told GamesIndustry.biz that it is, "Not aware of any legal action." Parrish wrote an open letter recently to the 2,062 retired NFLers who won $28 million in a lawsuit with the NFL last January, asking that they each put $1,000 of their stake from the last victory into a "litigation War Chest."

Considering the tenacity of the folks involved (the $28 million was won in appeals court, mind you), we think it may be worth pointing out that they may just not be organized yet -- after all, the statements made by Parrish were published just over one week ago. Either way, EA seems to contest the allegations, stating, "This is a dispute between the retired players and their union." Another lawsuit it is then!

Source

Tags: bernie-parrish, ea, ea-sports, Electronic-Arts, gamesindustry.biz, john-madden, lawsuit, madden, madden-10, nfl

Reader Comments (8)

Hey Ben, how about some Gothic 4 love eh? It's releasing on all platforms and looks sexy http://www.gamekyo.com/newsen30835_gothic-4-new-screenshots.html

That game doesnt look bad, altho I have no idea how Jowood is still in business or makes any money. They have yet to produce a single product that I thought I didnt waste my money on.
Back on topic, I hope the NFL players get whats fair.

Holding out hope for the day Madden looks as good in motion as it does in stills....

It's RUMOURS! ¬_¬

I don't get it. I wish I could make millions of dollars a year, yet these people do (or did) and still complain that they don't get enough.

Most of the players that are involved in this lawsuit were NOT playing during the time of multimillion dollar contracts. They didn't make the money, and seriously....if someone used your likeness and made gobs of money off of it, you wouldn't want a piece of it at all??

How do you quantify how much money was made off of these classic players' likenesses? I would go as far as saying that most people don't care much for the legends players in the game, and would rather play their current team which has much more relevance for them (unless you're a Raiders fan, maybe). Madden would sell as much as it did every year if people were playing it for the old guys. This is a completely unquantifiable sum, but apparently it's about $28 million as this is the amount they won from the only people who they have a claim against, the NFL.

As I said before, fairness to the players or not, their beef is with the NFL and the NFL only. The players had a contract with the NFL allowing the use of their likenesses for promotional material, and the NFL didn't compensate them for the revenues generated through the video game sales. EA had contracts with the NFL to use these likenesses, so EA was merely acting in good faith within the scope of a viable contract. The players got their money from already, from the previous lawsuit with the NFL.

Breaking News

EA denies NFL lawsuit rumors

Reader Comments (8)

Posted: Apr 25th 2009 3:51PM Anticrawl said

Posted: Apr 25th 2009 4:25PM Never said

Posted: Apr 25th 2009 4:04PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 25th 2009 7:14PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 25th 2009 8:43PM Ignatius said

Posted: Apr 25th 2009 10:20PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 26th 2009 1:17PM aristokrat said

Posted: Apr 26th 2009 1:12PM aristokrat said

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