WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- The National Football League finds that its next generation of fans is being recruited by an unexpected tool, the Madden NFL video game.
The game, produced by Electronic Arts and named after John Madden, the Hall of Fame coach and NBC sports analyst, has sold 53 million copies in 17 years, 6.2 million of them last year. It could be why football is the most popular sport among teens, with 22 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds naming it while 13 percent named baseball, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
"There's no question it's the video game that's bringing in teenagers," Marc Ganis, the president of Sportscorp Ltd., a Chicago sports consulting firm, told the Post. "It's educating young fans on the NFL terminologies and making them more sophisticated about the plays on the field."
The NFL vets every new edition of the game. Its officials travel to Florida and go through it with Electronic Arts, pointing out illegal plays and other errors.
Experts say that Madden has broken down football's major barrier, the gap between fans who played football in school or college and those who have not.
