EA’s ‘Madden NFL’ Chief Reveals Purpose of Amazon’s Docuseries About 36-Year Franchise: ‘It’s the Most Complex Sports Game to Make’

variety.com:

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Along with its much-promoted Black Friday NFL game, Amazon is serving up a side helping of holiday sports content this week with its new docuseries about the history of the top-selling video game based on pigskin: “Madden NFL.” And no, the timing is not a coincidence, as “Madden” publisher EA Sports is keenly aware of the association between Hall of Fame football coach and iconic commentator John Madden, for whom the franchise is named, and Turkey Day. “Thanksgiving is synonymous with Coach Madden.

He called something like 20 Thanksgiving games as an announcer and was part of a lot of different holiday traditions with that,” EA Sports senior vice president and general manager Daryl Holt told Variety. “It became a calling card of football around the Thanksgiving holiday.” Throughout his life, Madden was closely involved in the development of the game — formerly known as “John Madden Football,” until EA struck its long-running rights deal with the NFL in 1990 — and Holt said EA Sports has been considering ways to tell the story of the franchise and Madden’s influence for years.

Then along came Amazon, which has been working overtime to solidify its standing in the football community since setting its pact air “Thursday Night Football” from 2023 to 2033. “The filmmakers and Amazon approached us, but we were already pretty receptive because we’ve been thinking about ways to tell the story and the legacy of Coach Madden’s involvement, the longevity of ‘Madden NFL‘ as a franchise, now 36 years in the making and continuing,” Holt said. “So that opportunity, as it presented itself, was a natural one for us to say, let’s dive deeper and see how we can make this work.