The video game maker Electronic Arts announced an exclusive five-year deal with the National Football League and its players yesterday to design games using the N.F.L. brand, stadiums, player names and uniforms.

The deal could be a boon for Electronic Arts, industry analysts said, particularly given what has turned out to be surprisingly intense competition in the sports video game market in recent months.

Since September, Electronic Arts has been forced to cut prices nearly in half, to $29.95, to compete with a new line of low-cost sports games introduced by its two chief rivals, Sega and Take Two Interactive.

Working together, Sega and Take Two last July began publishing a line of ESPN-titled sports games priced at $19.95. The companies have sold more than two million copies of the football game, ESPN NFL 2K5, according to industry analysts.

Previously, the N.F.L. and its players' licensing subsidiary, Players, Inc., offered nonexclusive licenses to build video games around the brands. Both the Electronic Arts and Take Two/Sega games currently include N.F.L.-licensed content.

The N.F.L. and the players' licensing group declined to say how much Electronic Arts was paying for the exclusive five-year deal. But an industry executive said the contract was worth more than $300 million.

A spokesman for Take Two said the decision by the NFL and its players to restrict its license to an exclusive deal would be bad for consumers. The spokesman, Ed Nebb, said that the decision would mean that there would only be a single game on the market with N.F.L. players and other league-owned content.
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Source : NYTimes