After 135 days, the great NFL lockout of 2011 is finally over. Yesterday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said, “Football is back,” and fans everywhere celebrated the NFL Players Association and the league’s 31 owners coming to an agreement. That is, of course, after a grueling summer of negotiations drove the people who pay $100 per ticket in addition to parking, food, souvenir and transportation expenses almost insane.
See, as much as we’d like to believe that the NFL’s owners and players are participating in the 2011 season for the love of the game, the harsh reality is that professional sports are a business above all else. So, the average fan who sacrifices quite a bit of his or her income to attend one game this season is joining EA Sports in breathing a heavy sigh of relief that the greedy owners and whiny players finally shook hands.
The Madden franchise is EA Sports’ biggest cash cow, and the above spot from San Francisco-based agency Heat for the video game imprint portrays NFL stars who are happy to get back to work. But, as Deadspin is pointing out, with NFL teams just gaining the ability to sign free agents this week, EA won’t have enough time to generate complete updated team rosters for Madden 2012’s August 30 release date. Not that any of this is going to matter for the next month anyway, because in case you haven’t heard, Favre-Watch 2012 has already begun.