Nah, the NFL will just shop out exclusivity to the highest bidder again.  Do you really think King Bobby would hesitate to chuck a ton of cash to have the only licensed annual NFL game?

Is this true?  Do you know what that provision entails?  Because I know the TV networks have to pay even if there is a strike, albeit they'll eventually get comped for part of it sometime down the line.

Just dash my dreams why dont you...

With the players Union winning the first legal fight on TV money for 2011, I believe that if there is a lockout it won't be a full year as baring change, the owners won't have access to the 4 billion$ of tv rights they were counting on during the lockout...( basically last time they negotiated rights for TV the owners put a provision for getting paid during a possible lockout in exchange for slightly lower tv rights. It woudn't be an issue except that the players share 60% of the revenue so basically the owners by doing that reduced he amount of money the players got these last seasons in exchange for getting money during a lockout where player woudn't be getting any share.....)

basically EA doesn't have to pay the NFL as much in case of a lockout ( the exact terms have not been disclosed).

And they can still release Madden even if there is no NFL season.

On a regular season with no lockout EA has to pay 9$ of royalty to the NFL per copy of Madden sold.. It would be much less in case of lockout ( compensating for lower number of copies sold).

With their market position at the end of 2004, EA should have been able to be highly successful on the Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, and smart phones ...

Unfortunately, EA suffered from record losses at a time when they had record revenues because they "bet against" these platforms; and the growing development costs on the platforms EA favoured were far larger than the revenue their games pulled in.

That ruling's going to be appealled, though, and considering Doty's record it's not exactly certain that the ruling will get upheld.  At the very least, a stay is likely pending the appeal which, considering the speed of our legal system, means that the owners will probably keep getting income for a while yet. 

More to the point, a lockout will probably only target union members, not all the players.  It's true that the majority of the current players are in the PA, but not all are.  Moreover, there's nothing to keep the owners from recruiting people who are not currently players (i.e. the scrubs), like they did in 1987.

So that's still money coming into their coffers, then.  I'm unfortunately certain that it's going to be a grind after all... :-/

Oh right, the actual original topic.  Forgot about that!

The sad thing is that we are probably heading for an NBA lockout too and that one could last a lot longer :(((

there was a NHL not too long ago as well wasn't there? What is with these athletes. They are getting a lot more than most athletes around the world.