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Leaked Staff Comments Exposes EA’s Plan to Ditch FIFA Branding
In a recently leaked comment of EA's CEO Andrew Wilson, EA plans to end its partnership deal with FIFA. According to the feedback directed to his staff members, Wilson pointed out that the agreement with FIFA was proving to be non-beneficial to Electronic Arts (EA.)
The CEO's remarks illustrate how uneconomical the licensing agreement with FIFA has been. He adds that FIFA becomes financially beneficial to them only every four years, during the world cup season. After that, Wilson comments,
“Basically, what we get from FIFA in a non-World Cup year is the four letters on the front of the box.”
The comment also indicated that the agreement with FIFA is highly restrictive to EA. The CEO maintains that some parts of the contract limit several aspects of EA's plans. Wilson's comments give an instance of the limitation; where he says that EA is not at liberty to “expand more deeply and broadly into the digital ecosystems around the fabric of football.”
EA says that the company has had several ideas to develop to meet their clientele needs, only to be shut down due to the FIFA arrangements. EA has been struggling to increase matches to go beyond 11v11. It has also been trying to strike partnerships with non-FIFA members in vain. A past report by the New York Times had shared an existing rivalry between EA and FIFA. The NYT further explained that EA was fighting to gain the rights to extend their actions and developments.
Even though EA refuses to comment after this leak, the comments foresee a rough spot within the partnership. The current contract binds the two companies until Qatar's world cup series. The world cup matches will run from November to December 18. Afterward, we hope to hear whether EA will decide to renew or seize the contract altogether.
So, what’s your take? Will EA dropping the FIFA tag cause any ripple effect? Let us know over on our socials here or down in the comments below.