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EA Sports refreshes NHL and UFC partnerships with multi-year deals

Much to no one's surprise, EA Sports has refreshed contracts with the NHL and UFC to continue producing officially licensed games for both organizations.

TJ Denzer

November 5, 2020 10:04 AM

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Whether for better or worse, Electronic Arts is synonymous with officially licensed sports titles. EA Sports continues to hold the market on a grand slew of popular worldwide organizations, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. So it should come as little surprise that EA Sports has signed new multi-year deals with both the NHL and UFC to continue to create officially licensed titles for both franchises for years to come.

EA Sports announced its new multi-year partnership deals in separate official statements on the NHL contract and UFC contract. In both cases, EA is refreshing and extending its partnership to continue to act as the main developer of licensed simulation games of both of these sporting organizations. That means the chance of us seeing UFC or NHL head for another developer/publisher, such as 2K, is quite literally nil. It also means we can likely continue to see refreshed productions of the UFC and NHL EA video game franchises year to year, with the recent products of both organizations having recently released.

As mentioned, it shouldn’t come as much surprise. EA Sports pursued a similar partnership extension with the NFL and NFLPA earlier this year in which it was specified that Electronic Arts would continue to act as the sole developer of licensed football simulations for the NFL through its Madden series (which has arguably been an increasing stain on the annual video game release schedule). Even so, it hasn’t stopped the possibility of 2K creating some kind of football game that’s not a sim.

In their defense, FIFA 21, NHL 21, and EA Sports UFC 4 have all featured good gameplay improvements in their relative fields, even if gameplay off the turf, rink, or ring leave something to be desired, so those looking for more of the EA Sports core experience in those games might be happy to know it’s continuing on for NHL and UFC at least.

That said, it looks like EA Sports will retain its iron grip on officially licensed sports titles in the NHL and UFC for many years to come.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.