EA and ESPN Sign 15-Year Deal

On Monday, ESPN and EA announced a 15-year integrated marketing agreement that will allow for all of EA's sports franchises to have access to the sports network's programming and personalities.

"Our mission is to be in a place that is central to our fans, wherever they are watching, reading or logging on," said John Skipper, ESPN's executive vice president of advertising sales, new media and consumer products. "Video games has become the new medium and we felt that it was crucial for us to be there in the biggest way possible."

"There is no better innovative partner than ESPN," said Frank Gibeau, EA's senior vice president of marketing. "We want to grow the sports category aggressively and nobody matches the capability, brand power and creative thinking in the news information and entertainment world."

The deal will commence in 2006, as ESPN still has one year left in its partnership with Sega.

1/18/2005 Aaron Thomas