The Beautiful Game Is A Licensing Pain

Football is the most popular sport in the world and it is understandable that interactive content companies want to offer games.

However, the intellectual property rights situation could not be more complicated.

There are two main choices: a playing simulation game or a management game.

For a playing simulation game, gamers will expect to see favourite footballers, representing club and national teams, in stadia, wearing branded kit, managed by famous coaches, kicking branded balls and trying to win famous tournaments:

- Knockout cups, national club leagues, international club leagues, continental championships and, ultimately, the FIFA World Cup.

For a management game, they would not expect to see all of those elements physically, but they would expect them all to be named.

The major US sports have a co-ordinated approach to all of this. Each governing body - whether the NBA or MLB or NHL or NFL - can organise 2 licences to deliver all of those elements: one for the players and one for the rest.

Football offers the opposite, with the most complex and unravelled rights situation imaginable.

One reason for the unstoppable success of EA Sports’ FIFA annual franchise on consoles, which they are now managing themselves for mobile, is the licensing effort they put in.

There are about 170 licences incorporated in the FIFA games and Electronic Arts employs a whole department of lawyers to manage the negotiations, variations and renewals.

Nobody notices, but there is actually a lot missing from a FIFA game, because even the mighty EA cannot get the rights. For example, try finding anything Dutch…clubs and players in the Netherlands mostly refuse to license their rights.

EA has been adding wireless rights to its contracts, which is another barrier to entry for specialist mobile games companies.

What can you do about it?

Urge the football authorities to license collectively?

Make a better game than FIFA?

License one element to endorse the game: player or manager or kit brand?

These and other options also have complications. You will need an experienced licensing expert to help you.