Tag: John Madden

So, we should expect Random Name 2010 instead?

Just last week, SG informed, thanks in no small part to an exclusive blog post, that John Madden was retiring. BAM! That was tough actin’ Ti-blog postin’. Well, hold on to your seats, faithful readers, as you might get exposed to some BAM!, tough actin’ Ti-litigation.

Fresh off a $28 million victory over their own union, a retired NFL player says his comrades are targeting John Madden and Electronic Arts for their roles in games using their likenesses without compensating them.

Readers might recall that more than 2,000 retired NFL players won a collective $28 million judgment against the National Football League Players Association, upheld in January. Their suit alleged that the union advised EA to “scramble” the players’ likenesses (numbers, heights, sometimes races, but not stats) in order to use them in historic team rosters without compensation.

Well, having beaten one end of that shady transaction – the union – it sounds like the players want blood money from the other end-no, not that end-that being the deep-pocketed EA and Madden himself. According to an interview on Dave Pear’s blog:

The retired NFL players who were used in Madden EA video games will be suing Madden and EA for using us in those games without compensating us. We probably will not use … the attorneys who obtained a $28.1 million verdict for us against the NFLPA for “scrambling retired players identities” in those video games. The jury found it a “grossly fraudulent” action taken so they wouldn’t have to pay the retired players. … In my opinion, Madden should have been included in our licensing suit against the NFLPA and so should EA.

Bernie Parrish, the former player being interviewed, asks the retirees, who are due some $13,000 each under the verdict, to set aside $1,000 for a legal fund to continue the pursuit. Because, you know, everyone just has a spare grand lying around for purposes like suing the pants off a union. I keep mine in a glass jar underneath my bed, despite the fact that I’ve never been a member of a union and don’t have any plans to sue former employers of mine.

…..

…..

…….please don’t rob me.

Guest Post: John Madden on retiring

SeriouslyGuys is excited to receive our first guest post since Jay Leno’s writers back in 2008: John Madden. Mr. Madden wanted to talk about his retirement from football announcing and what this means for the sport, viewers, himself and Monday nights.

Hi, John Madden here. If you picked up an Internet news site today, then you probably already know that I gave a press conference, in which I told the press that I’m retiring from announcing football games for television.

Now, in order to retire from announcing football games for television, that means I have to stop doing programs like Monday Night Football. The key step here is to prevent myself from going to the games, putting on makeup and sitting in front of the cameras and microphone in the broadcasting booth. Also, I’m not really retired if I make any play-by-play calls while wearing a lapel microphone. Those count, too, you know.

So, this retirement means that viewers will no longer see and/or hear me calling the plays during the game, which is where I watch the game with you and tell you what’s happened. At this point, the viewers will have no choice but listen to and watch someone else, who will do what I’ve just described — but with a different voice.

What does this mean for me? I’ll tell you what this means: I’ll have to watch football like a normal man, which means I will drive my friends and family insane by describing every action in the game to them like I would on television. But remember, I won’t be on television. Unless I get one of those video camera/TV displays from Sears. Then I’ll be on TV, but on a separate one from the game or on picture-in-picture (PIP).

Also, I won’t be able to do the scribble arrows thing anymore without a dry erase marker.

This retirement from all football game announcing means that I will also no longer appear on Monday Night Football. This is because the Monday night game is still a football game, only on a Monday night instead of a Sunday afternoon or night, Saturday night or the occasional Tuesday or Thursday night game.

In closing, this means that I will no longer be paid by NBC to talk about the plays during the game, which must occur for it to be considered a game or there’s a penalty for delay of game. (That’s when a team delays the game by failing to commence a play before the play clock reaches 0.)

Good night, unless it’s not night where you are, in which case, the sun is still up or it is not after 5 pm.

Eat My Sports: XX years of Madden, thanks GB

Boom. Enough said already, right? Today at 12:01 AM, the 20th edition of the Madden franchise hit stores with a resounding … boom. For 20 years John Madden has taken his game from an eight-bit blur of a figure carrying what looks like the equivalent of dog crap, and morphed it into the definitive gaming franchise ever made. From the five-year-old that you routinely beat the ever-loving Tinactin out of online, to the closet Chicago Bears fan that doubles as a computer analyst, Madden’s all-consuming (literally, see: Thanksgiving in Dallas) approach to football has grabbed everyone by the seams and made them pay attention … and $60 for a freaking video game. Continue reading Eat My Sports: XX years of Madden, thanks GB