To folks of a certain age, John Madden was the big-guy coach stalking the sidelines of Oakland Raiders games in the 1970s, winning a Super Bowl with a motley band of renegades and flakes.
To others, he was the avuncular and relatable TV personality that made football broadcasts and commercials on four different networks fun and interesting and sometimes goofy. The Madden Cruiser, turducken and the telestrator became part of football and even wider American culture.
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For the past 30 years, Madden also has been synonymous with the wildly popular football video game franchise that bears his name.
His death at age 85 on Tuesday fueled a wave of remembrances and nostalgia across the generations and for different reasons.
It also raises the questions of what’s next for the Madden video game series that Electronic Arts has produced since 1988. The company has a deal in place to use Madden’s name and likeness in perpetuity and apparently intends to do so.
EA hasn’t said yet what it will do to honor Madden but plans are in the works.
“We will continue to honor John Madden and the immeasurable impact he had on football. We will have more details to share in the coming weeks. It’s always been a great privilege to work on the game bearing his name, and we are honored to continue to grow his legacy,” said Cam Weber, executive vice president of EA Sports, via email.
Thanks, Coach pic.twitter.com/jGx8aVdRPj
— Madden NFL 22 (@EAMaddenNFL) December 29, 2021
Madden was involved in the annual creation of the game since the start and up through the current edition that debuted in August.
“Coach Madden has been a consistent voice over the years, providing input on each edition of Madden NFL up to the most recent release of ‘Madden NFL 22.’ Our development team would meet with Coach Madden each year to present the newest developments and vision for that year’s game,” Weber said. “Coach Madden had a profound impact on all of us and loved to dive into the details of our game — particularly on playbook design, and the on-field representation. He made sure we captured the latest trends in the sport, with his unique insights on the X’s and O’s and rule changes.”
That devotion to detail helped the game emerge as the industry leader in football simulations, and forever linked Madden’s name to EA’s game.
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“In the world of video games, the name Madden has become synonymous (or perhaps even more definitive) of NFL football games than even the NFL branding,” said Mat Piscatella, the top video game industry analyst at The NPD Group. “Video game football players don’t say, ‘What do you think of the new NFL game?’ They say, ‘What do you think of the new ‘Madden’?’ Maybe it’s not all that different from when someone wants a tissue, and they ask for a Kleenex. The Madden brand represents gridiron football in the video game world.”
While Madden himself made enormous sums from his coaching, broadcasting and TV commercial work, the video game franchise was an enormous part of his business portfolio. Electronic Arts reportedly paid him $150 million in 2005 for the perpetual right to use his name and likeness for the video game franchise, plus another $2 million annually.
EA initially paid Madden $100,000 in 1984, according to Polygon.com.
That was the year of the famous three-day train trip during which Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins tried to convince Madden to put his name on a football video game. It was reportedly a simplistic 7-on-7 simulation, and Madden wasn’t having it until the technology could replicate a more realistic game.
“I wouldn’t do it unless we had 11 guys on defense and 11 guys on offense,” Madden told Grantland for a feature story in 2012. “If it wasn’t real football, I didn’t want my name on it. I wanted it to be real football — pro football — with the sideline, the numbers, the hash marks. Everything had to be pro football.”
Technology caught up, and “John Madden Football” debuted in 1988 on MS-DOS for the Apple II and Commodore 64 home computer systems.
A couple of years later, it debuted on the Sega Genesis console system and the rest is history.
“Coach Madden’s impact on the ‘Madden’ NFL franchise and EA Sports is immeasurable,” Weber said. “From the beginning, the vision shared by Coach Madden for an authentic 11v11 game has been a driving principle for our team to deliver the most realistic football simulation. Tens of millions of fans have learned the sport of football through Coach Madden and the franchise. He undoubtedly played a huge role in growing the love of football worldwide.”
Madden himself, or with players, appeared on the cover of the first 13 editions of the game, after which it was only players.
More than a game. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/vtn6HlMj1p
— NFL (@NFL) December 29, 2021
Madden’s credibility stemmed from coaching the Raiders to victory over the Vikings in Super Bowl XI in January 1977 and assembling a regular-season win-loss record of 103-32-7. His .759 winning percentage remains the best in NFL history, topping Paul Brown, Vince Lombardi and Bill Belichick. He retired from his 10-year NFL coaching stint in 1979 and went to work that year as a football TV broadcaster in a 40-year career that included work at CBS, Fox, ABC and NBC. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006.
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Today, the “Madden” video game has sold more than 150 million copies and generated more than $4 billion in revenue for EA. Only a few titles, including the globally popular soccer franchise “FIFA” and “The Sims,” have been bigger sellers in EA’s inventory.
There have been other popular football video games — Joe Montana, John Elway and others have had their names on games — but “Madden” has become the game against which all others are measured. EA in 2004 landed exclusive NFL and NFLPA video game rights for teams, logos, names, etc., which effectively created a legal monopoly on football video games that ensured the Madden series would face little competition.
While gamers have been critical of EA’s handling of the game and its attributes as each hits store shelves to much fanfare, the title remains a sales behemoth.
Madden’s death isn’t likely to affect that, Piscatella said. He pointed to data that indicates the franchise’s strength.
“’Madden NFL’ itself is one of the biggest video game franchises in U.S. history. Over the past 12 months, ‘Madden NFL 22’ is the No. 3 best-selling premium video game in dollar sales, trailing only two ‘Call of Duty’ games. In calendar year 2020, ‘Madden NFL 21’ ranked as the No. 5 best-selling game of the year in dollar sales,” Piscatella said. “A ‘Madden NFL’ release has also been the best-selling game of its launch month for 22 consecutive years. I think in terms of long-term, evergreen franchise strength, at the top one would have to put ‘Mario’ and ‘Madden NFL.’”
The NFL and EA have a $1.6 billion licensing agreement signed in 2020 that runs through 2026. Of that, the players reportedly will share $600 million, which Sportico said is double the last deal.
While Madden’s distinct voice and expressions — “BOOM! POW!” — haven’t been in the game since 2009, he remained not only personally involved in the annual title development, but also shared his coaching experiences and brought his family into the process. Weber shared some of the experiences of working with Madden.
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“Coach wanted to make football about family, so often his sons and other family members would be around when our development team spent the day with him going through our updates and watching football. He would tell amazing stories about games he coached, interesting player performances over the years, and he always emphasized the importance of the fundamentals and player safety as well.
“On one notable occasion, in the middle of watching NFL football, as people were coming and going from the room, a guy came in and quietly sat down beside us. Coach noticed and said to all of us, ‘That right there is one of the great tight ends to ever play this game.’ He then introduced us to Dave Casper and told stories about him as a player and how he became famous for the ‘Ghost to the Post’ play. You never knew who you might meet or what you’d learn spending a day with Coach.”
(Photo: Robert Stinnett / Oakland Tribune Staff Archives / via Getty Images)
