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EA Sports has revealed it is reviewing the naming rights for FIFA, which could mean the iconic football franchise gets a new name in the future.
FIFA 22 launched last week, marking the start of what will likely be another successful year for a football sim that has received annual installments since 1994. EA Sports has already revealed a number of stats celebrating its latest game's success, including how many millions of matches have already been played. FIFA 22 also shot straight to the top of the UK boxed chart over the weekend.
In the same statement EA Sports boasted about FIFA's first week numbers, it snuck in a snippet about its potential plans to change the game's name. That's right, after almost three decades of FIFA, EA appears to be considering changing things up. ”We’re also exploring the idea of renaming our global EA Sports football games,” the statement reads.
“This means we’re reviewing our naming rights agreement with FIFA, which is separate from all our other official partnerships and licenses across the football world.” EA Sports juggles hundreds of different licensing agreements at once to make FIFA the game that it is. That includes the biggest one of all, a deal with FIFA that has allowed the series to sport the global federation's name for all these years.
Should EA follow through with its plan to rename a brand that is almost three decades old, then the question remains what will FIFA be called next? There are a few possibilities. Like Madden NFL, the series could be named after an iconic manager from the past. Or perhaps the battle to be FIFA's cover star could become a fight to have that year's game named after you.
In reality, should FIFA be left behind by EA, the series will probably be renamed something like EA Sports Soccer. Not a wise idea if that's what the publisher goes with considering the reaction to calling football soccer in the UK, one of FIFA's biggest markets. It may also opt to sell the naming rights to the highest bidder. Prepare to play Subway Soccer '23 a year from now. We'll let you decide whether that's better or worse than eFootball.