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Discussion EA to now have two divisions: Entertainment and Sports

well this served to remind me that Andrew Wilson is still steering the ship over there so uh, not great PR lol

thank you OP for reporting on this in a clear way tho with your thread title, I see a lot of headlines elsewhere already making this look bigger than it is
 
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We certainly wouldn't want the sports to accidentally be entertaining.
 
Dcubed said:
Certainly would make them much more palliatable to potential acquisition targets...
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yeah this feels like a spinning off the Entertainment Division so it can be acquired move while they keep the lucrative sports service business
 
9-Volt said:
Still no chance for EA Sports BIIIIIIIG? Meh. That was the most interesting part of EA.
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Seriously. I had a sliver of hope I would find that in this news earlier, but of course that was pure hopium on my part...
 
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Dcubed said:
Certainly would make them much more palliatable to potential acquisition targets...
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My immediate first thought.

The sports licenses were always going to gum the works up on this, given that the sports IPs are worthless without all the associated licenses that need regular renewals anyways (with an ever-increasing license fee). The precariousness of that makes an acquisition simply the most unpalatable it could possibly be to potential buyers. This immediately resolves that issue by just... not selling the most profitable but hardest-to-sell division of the company through segregating it from the rest of the business entirely.
 
I'm an idiot, because i don't understand the meaning of this...it's still EA? seems like it's not splitting in two companies
 
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I just hope that if this is an overture to selling, that whoever ends up with them unfucks everything associated with this company. Because goddamn has EA squandered a ton of their properties through boundless mismanagement over the years, especially the legacy PC brands they acquired in the 90s.

RIP Origin, Bullfrog, Westwood, Maxis…
 
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ILikeFeet said:
Don't think this has anything to do with selling the company.
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It's hard not to think that it is when there's already been talk that Android Wilson has been trying to sell EA on the whole, with both Comcast and Amazon allegedly seriously considering such a proposal, but both deals apparently fell through around pricing... possibly because of, as I already mentioned, the EA Sports portion over-inflating their valuation when it's based on a license agreement that could potentially not be successfully renewed (or have exclusivity lost, in the case of Madden).

www.videogameschronicle.com

EA is allegedly pursuing a sale and ‘has talked to Apple, Amazon and Disney’ | VGC

A new report claims the publisher entered into talks about a potential Comcast merger…
www.videogameschronicle.com www.videogameschronicle.com

This siloing of their product offering gives me a theory:
  1. they will re-approach previously interested buyers with a studio and IP sale for their non-sports business
  2. they will go directly to the NFL, NHL, FIFA, PGA, footie clubs and assorted player unions to discuss forming a consortium to buy out EA Sports, becoming the license holders of their leagues and player likenesses AND the publisher of content generated from both.
That's what I'd be doing, anyways.

EDIT: And point #2 isn't a terribly out-there proposal; sports leagues have been exerting their influence on how video games based on their sport are produced for some time now, between the exorbitant exclusive license fees the NFL asks for, to MLB Advanced Media renewing their contract with Sony/San Diego Studio only if they were permitted the right to get MLB The Show published on Xbox and Nintendo hardware, to FIFA outright refusing to renew their license with EA because EA would not pay a $1 billion fee for a 4-year deal. Forming a consortium and buying EA Sports outright would simply be an extension of that exertion of their power and influence.
 
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