Electronic Arts Lands an NFL Exclusive

But the cost to EA is ultimately what will determine whether this was a good move, said Joe Spiegel, a fund manager with Dalek Capital. The NFL has recently been renegotiating its television licenses and other deals for significant amounts of money, he noted.

"The NFL is out to make money. They're not doing EA any favors," Spiegel said. "I'm sure this cost a pretty penny."

An NFL representative declined to discuss how much EA paid for the licensing rights. Doug Allen, president of Players Inc., also declined to discuss the financial specifics of the deal but said that the company was looking for more than just the highest offer.

"We made it clear that this was not going be a high-bid process, that we would choose the proposal that made the most sense to us," Allen said.

Without the competition from Take-Two, EA will likely be able to raise its price for its flagship Madden NFL title and likely won't have to spend as much money on development as it might otherwise, said Spiegel. And because it has exclusivity on a number of platforms, it will be able to spread the cost of the deal across a number of games, he said.

"They'll have some room to pay this extra money," Spiegel said.

While EA's move does take away Take-Two's top sports game, it may not be such a bad deal for Take-Two. It won't have to pay through the nose for the NFL license, and for now it can focus its efforts on its other sports titles.

"I think people are going to overreact and make this more of a positive for EA and more of a negative for Take-Two than it really is," he said.

But the bigger danger for Take-Two is that the other sports leagues may follow the NFL's lead, said Conley.

"What's to stop the NBA, major league baseball or the NHL from doing the same thing?" Conley said. "If they do that, Electronic Arts is by far the biggest [player]. It puts them in a good position if other leagues are going to offer this exclusivity."