> Potential lawsuit. Basically the Sherman Anti-Trust Act could be used against
> EA at this point *IF* the gov't wanted to step in on Sega's behalf(since they
> can't afford to take on EA.)
> The act says that in creating an environment where
> competition is stifled to near or complete monopoly status is illegal and the
> gov't at that rate when proven in court can step in and kick some ass.

But NFL/EA/ESPN entered into the deals willingly, and it doesn't prevent anyone else from making a football game. This may not be enough. And while abusing a monopoly is illegal (i.e. actually stifling competition), having one is not. NFL and ESPN are brand names and trademarks of commercial entities that can be licensed, but they do not own the game of football.

> EA
> taking up the NFL until 2010 means they got the only football license, but then
> by taking down ESPN until 2015(10yr contract) they've specifically targeted Sega
> and TakeTwo by taking their namesake license away which could at some level
> still been used to make non-NFL/AFL licensed games. At this rate it's easily
> proven they were losing sales at an increasing rate due to Madden being subpar
> to the ESPN lineup from Sega/TT so they took the football, then since it was the
> ESPN name they owned...EA took that as well to finish the job.

It might be hard to prove this as while it prevents people from obtaining licensed games from other companies, it doesn't prevent people from obtaining football games from other companies. Can a brand be considered as a commodity that prohibits the sale of football games? It's a pretty hard call to make, as the NFL could always create an internal game company and release their own games (what they should be doing from a business perspective?) or contract EA to produce them and we'd end up with about the same type of situation anyway.