"I gave you my time. I’m not giving you my money" - Revisiting the time when John Madden refused to buy stocks of his own video game
John Madden was a famous football coach and broadcaster, but much of his fame comes from the Madden football video game franchise. Over the last 30 years, Madden, as the game is called, has become one of the premier video game franchises of the industry.
Every year, the product is one of the best-selling video game products of the year, only routinely being outsold by the video games Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto.
However, the video game franchise faced plenty of obstacles in its early development of the very first title, including a dilemma over stock of the game.
Remembering John Madden's stock decisions and help in making Madden
According to the New York Post, the billion-dollar video game franchise had originally planned to use Joe Montana or Joe Kapp, but both had their own deal-breaking issues.
Montana was busy endorsing an Atari football game and Kapp wanted royalties. Insert John Madden, who was offered stock to help bring him aboard.
I was saddened to hear about the passing of John Madden, at age 85. One the all-time greats, he showed me the ropes during our brief football partnership. He was always kind and delightful. He can now join his former partner, Pat Summerall, in calling Super Bowls in heaven.
However, there was a catch. Madden would have to pay for the stock he would own. Instinctively, Madden turned that idea down.
"Hell, I’m just a football coach,” said Madden in the ESPN piece. “I pointed with my finger, all knowing, and said, ‘I gave you my time. I’m not giving you my money.’ I showed him!”
Unfortunately for Madden, he ended up regretting that decision more than any other in his life, as he went on to admit. The share price of EA rose from $7.50 to $70 per share in from 1989 to 1999.
However, Madden's input into the property may have been its salvation, which ultimately benefitted him.
John Madden has died at the age of 85. Known to one generation as a Hall of Fame coach, another as the greatest broadcaster ever, and yet another for the video game that bore his name. A football legend. An American original.
One of the stipulations of Madden's involvement was that the game had to be educational for coaches, fans, and players. This collided with the developer's original intent to only make a seven-on-seven football game.
Madden essentially said that if there was to be a football game, it would be 11-on-11. If not, there would be no game.
“If it’s not 11-on-11, it’s not real football,” Madden said. “If it was going to be me, and going to be pro football, it has to be 22 guys on the screen. If we couldn’t do that, we couldn’t have a game.”
Most would agree that, thanks to that decision, Madden became the premier football video game franchise. In 2005, Madden circled back to get a $150 million deal that allowed the franchise to use his likeness in perpetuity along with getting annual royalties.
While Madden didn't play it perfectly, it eventually worked out for arguably the biggest face of the game of football.