EA Sports is a part of Electronic Arts that creates and sells sports video games. At first, it was a marketing idea for Electronic Arts, where they used real-life sports network names, such as "EA Sports Network" (EASN), with pictures or endorsements. Over time, it became its own brand, producing game series like EA Sports FC, PGA Tour, NHL, NBA Live, and Madden NFL.
Most EA Sports games are made by EA Vancouver, a studio in Burnaby, British Columbia, and EA Orlando (formerly Tiburon Studios), located in Orlando, Florida. The main competitor of EA Sports is 2K Sports. Until 2018, both companies competed for the rights to make NBA games, with 2K creating the NBA 2K series. Konami is a competitor in association football games, producing the eFootball series.
For many years after EA Sports was created, all of its games began with a short video showing the brand’s logo and slogan, "It's in the game," which meant the games aimed to accurately recreate real sports. Andrew Anthony provided the voice for this video but was not paid for his work.
Unlike some other sports game companies, EA Sports does not focus on one platform. Instead, its games are released on the most popular platforms, even after other companies stop supporting them. For example, FIFA 98, Madden NFL 98, NBA Live 98, and NHL 98 were released for the Sega Genesis and Super NES in 1997. Madden NFL 2005 and FIFA 2005 were released for the PlayStation in 2004 and were the last PlayStation games made. NCAA Football 08 was released for the Xbox in 2007, and Madden NFL 08 was released for the Xbox and GameCube in 2007, becoming the final GameCube and Xbox titles. NASCAR Thunder 2003 and NASCAR Thunder 2004 were also released for the original PlayStation, in addition to the PlayStation 2.
EA Sports sponsors the English Football League Two team Swindon Town F.C. since the 2009–10 season and the EA Sports Cup in the Republic of Ireland. In July 2021, hackers who accessed Electronic Arts’ data in June 2021 shared the stolen files after failing to get money from the company and later sold them to another buyer. Before the 2023–24 season, EA Sports signed a five-year deal with the Spanish football league, Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional, to sponsor its first and second-tier competitions, named "LaLiga EA Sports" and "LaLiga Hypermotion," for €30 million each year.
In June 2023, EA announced a company reorganization, making EA Entertainment and EA Sports separate divisions. Cam Weber became the president of the EA Sports division.
In late September 2025, it was announced that Electronic Arts would be bought by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia and other investors in a $55 billion deal, which was completed later that month.
History
In 2003, EA Sports bought the rights to use NASCAR for six years, which stopped competition from Papyrus and Infogrames. The NASCAR license ended in 2009. After that, Polyphony Digital owned the NASCAR license for the Gran Turismo series starting with Gran Turismo 5. Eutechnyx also had the license for the NASCAR The Game series from 2011 to 2015.
On December 13, 2004, EA Sports signed an exclusive agreement with the National Football League (NFL) and its Players' Union for five years. On February 12, 2008, EA Sports announced the agreement would be extended until the 2012 NFL season.
Less than a month after the NFL deal, on January 11, 2005, EA Sports signed a four-year exclusive agreement with the Arena Football League (AFL).
On April 11, 2005, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and EA Sports signed a deal giving EA Sports the only rights to make college football games for six years.
In 2005, EA Sports lost the rights to make Major League Baseball (MLB) games to 2K Sports. This ended EA's MVP series. However, EA made NCAA Baseball games in 2006 and 2007 after losing the MLB license.
In January 2008, EA Sports decided not to renew its NCAA College Baseball license while it studied the status of its MVP game engine.
In 2005, EA Sports and ESPN signed a 15-year deal allowing ESPN to be included in EA Sports video games. Early uses of the ESPN license included radio and a sports ticker in games like Madden NFL, NBA Live, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, and NCAA Baseball and Football. Over time, ESPN integration expanded to include podcasts, articles, and video content.
The federal court case O'Bannon v. NCAA, decided in 2014, involved college athletes' rights to control their likenesses in products based on NCAA properties. The case focused on EA's NCAA Basketball 09 and led EA to stop making NCAA Basketball games. The court ruled in favor of the athletes, making it harder for EA to license these rights. While EA continued the NCAA Football series, the NCAA ended its license agreement with EA in 2013 due to the O'Bannon case and other issues.
On June 4, 2012, EA Sports signed a long-term partnership with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), taking over from THQ.
After releasing Rory McIlroy PGA Tour in 2015, EA Sports said it would stop its PGA Tour series after 25 years. The game was removed from digital stores in May 2018. 2K Sports took over the PGA Tour license with The Golf Club 2019 featuring PGA Tour in 2018.
In May 2020, the NFL, its Players' Association, and EA confirmed an exclusive contract for NFL sports games through the 2025–2026 season, with an optional one-year extension. The new contract allows EA to make NFL games outside of the typical Madden titles, including mobile games.
In February 2021, EA announced it would return to college sports with a new EA College Football game to be released in a few years. The game will not use player likenesses but will license team names, uniforms, and stadiums through the Collegiate Licensing Company. If rules about player likenesses are set before the game's release, EA said it would include them. Notre Dame declined to be part of the game until such rules are in place. At the time, EA had no other agreements with the NCAA for other sports. Later that month, EA bought Codemasters, the developers of the F1 series, reclaiming the rights to publish F1 games.
In May 2021, EA acquired Metalhead Software, the developers of the Super Mega Baseball series. EA said it plans to use aspects of that series to create a licensed baseball game in the future with MLB.
EA has had deals with FIFA to use the FIFA name and branding for its EA FIFA series, plus over 300 separate deals with leagues and teams for their names, logos, and player likenesses. In October 2021, FIFA began discussions with EA about renewing the rights for an exclusivity deal, but disagreements made negotiations difficult. FIFA wanted higher fees and limited the exclusivity to football simulation games, while EA wanted to expand the branding into new areas like esports. FIFA said it reached an impasse with EA. EA said using the FIFA name would not affect the player experience since league and team licenses would remain unchanged. EA trademarked "EA Sports FC" as a possible replacement name. The last game under the FIFA banner was 2022's FIFA 23.
On March 2, 2022, EA, FIFA, NHL, NHL Players' Association, IIHF, and F1 announced they removed Russian and Belarusian team names and logos from FIFA 22 and NHL 22 due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. This also affected F1 22, which removed the Russian Grand Prix and replaced Nikita Mazepin with Kevin Magnussen.
For the 2003 game year and from 2006 to 2008, EA published collections of EA Sports titles for Windows, such as the EA Sports 06 Collection.
In June 2009, EA Sports announced that for 2010, games like Madden NFL, NCAA Football, NASCAR, NHL, NBA Live, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour would not be released for PC platforms. The NCAA Football series had not been on PC since 1998, and the last PC version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour was 2008. The NASCAR series had no PC version since 2005, and the last Madden NFL PC game was 2008. The last NHL and NBA Live PC games were 2009 and 2008, respectively.
At the time, EA Sports' head, Peter Moore, said piracy and the decline of PC as a platform for licensed sports games were reasons for the decision.
Franchises
Most EA Sports games are named with the year they are released, as they come out each year. However, because EA Sports is the main buyer of official licenses, it is common for several games in the same sport with different licenses to be released in a short time. For example, FIFA: Road to World Cup 98 was quickly followed by World Cup 98, both released after FIFA Soccer Manager in 1997. This happened because EA Sports has owned the license for the FIFA World Cup, which occurs every four years since 1998. Additionally, college football and basketball games are made based on the Madden NFL and NBA Live series, respectively.