Area51_FLG
11-27-2003, 09:54 PM
Gary Williams isn't screaming. He is talking, right at you, in the moments before the NCAA championship game.
"Every player in the country that ever plays college basketball wants to be in this game," Maryland's basketball coach says. "And we're here. So the next step is to take that feeling, and win with that feeling. We have to win this basketball game."
No, it's not Williams's pitch to his team before the 2001 title game, in which the Terrapins beat Indiana. Rather, it's Williams in a home video game version of such a moment, and he's there for one reason. His players play them. Recruits play them. It's yet another way -- albeit a hipper, new millennium-type, consumer-based way -- for coaches to promote their programs and reach the kids who might, some day, play for them.
"You get in a lot of living rooms with that game," Williams said. "Of course, I don't even know how to plug it in, but . . . "
Williams and the 12 other coaches who appear in Electronic Arts Sports' new "NCAA March Madness 2004" receive just a few thousand dollars apiece for their roles as motivators and strategists. Some -- such as Williams, Oklahoma's Kelvin Sampson, Florida's Billy Donovan and Utah's Rick Majerus -- have been to the actual Final Four, with actual players, coaching in actual games.
Others, such as Fran McCaffrey, the coach at North Carolina Greensboro, or Tim Buckley, who coaches at Ball State, are off the mainstream radar. The game, though, is one way to get on it.
"The kids will see me, and if a kid's making a decision [on which school to attend], I'm not saying he'll choose us because we're in the video game," McCaffrey said. "But if you're not even in it, then you must be one of the bottom teams in Division I, in the kid's mind."
Three game makers -- EA, Sega and Sony -- are licensed by the NCAA to produce video games based on college sports. At the pro level, where athletes can be paid for their participation, the task is fairly straightforward: Find a marquee figure, such as Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, and both build and market the game around his skills and image. That's the formula for EA Sports' hugely popular "Madden NFL 2004." Game makers, though, must work within the NCAA's guidelines when producing college games. No names of players. No accurate likenesses. No money back to the kids.
"When you look at the bylaws, there's only so much the video game manufacturers can do with us," said Melissa Caito, the NCAA's director of licensing and brand management. "They want to push the envelope and make the games more real, and we want to protect amateurism, so we work collaboratively."
It is a market the NCAA clearly wanted a piece of. Projections predict the global market for video games to top $35 billion this year. As NFL, NBA and NHL games became popular in the early 1990s, executives at the Collegiate Licensing Corp., the Atlanta-based company that holds the NCAA's licensing rights, watched colleges being left behind.
"We felt it was important for teenagers and people in their twenties, the people that play these games, to have a college option," said Pat Battle, president of CLC. "Sega and Sony and EA have done a good job capturing the things that make college sports college sports, the pageantry and the fight songs and those kinds of things."
They can't, however, use the players.
"I'll be honest: It would be nice if we could do that," Battle said. "Every year, the companies come to us and say, 'We could sell a lot more video games if we could do that.' "
So they fudge it. NCAA rules allow the game-makers to use uniform numbers and statistics from the previous year to come up with a game that reflects an actual team. Last year's Maryland team, for instance, would have a point guard wearing No. 25 who was a better passer than shooter -- ostensibly, former Terrapin Steve Blake. The football version, for instance, has a speedy, shifty kick returner for Maryland wearing number 34.
"I know it's me in the game," said Steve Suter, Maryland's speedy, shifty kick returner who sports number 34. "We love the games, but that's one of the main reasons we play, so we can play ourselves against other teams and players we play" in real life.
Only former college players -- such as former Duke guard and current Chicago Bull Jay Williams on the cover of Sega's "NCAA 2K3" or Carmelo Anthony, formerly of Syracuse, now of the Denver Nuggets -- can promote the college game. The current players haven't had any uprisings to protest the use of their loosely based images.
"I've never had one of our kids say they wanted anything else," McCaffrey said. "They think it's cool."
Even if the players wanted change, it would take a monumental shift in NCAA policy. Schools, not players, make money from the sale of jerseys with specific players' numbers on them.
"The NCAA operates, literally, like a cartel in terms of you have to play by their rules or not play at all," said Kevin Kovalycsik, a professor of sport economics and finance at Seton Hall's Center for Sport Management.
"When you take a look at the athletes, on one hand you say they're being taken advantage of, but on the other hand you say if there wasn't an NCAA, they wouldn't have the opportunity to go to school and play sports. . . . The NCAA is crafty. Whose image and likeness is it in these games? There's a gray area there, and they can fall back on that. But at the same time, how do you distinguish between amateur and professional sports when colleges are operating like professional sports?"
EA, for instance, turns to the people the NCAA doesn't regulate -- the coaches. This year's game, which came out just last week, is the first to incorporate motivational and strategic speeches from coaches. But for several years, the company has relied on coaching staffs around the nation for scouting reports on teams' game plans and tendencies.
"If there's a way to make games more realistic and provide more authenticity, we're going to find a way to do that," said Brian Movalson, senior brand manager at EA. "With the college game, the stars seem to be the coaches. The players always change, but the guys that are there for 20 years are the coaches."
And the group is savvy enough to know that, even if they can play the games, they might as well be involved.
"Our guys at Illinois, they played all the time," said first-year Kansas coach Bill Self, who spent the previous three years with the Illini. "I never knew what was going on. But from what I heard, the kids love them and play them all the time, so I got involved.
"I'm not sure a kid's going to choose our program because of it, but I can't imagine anything negative coming from it."
"Every player in the country that ever plays college basketball wants to be in this game," Maryland's basketball coach says. "And we're here. So the next step is to take that feeling, and win with that feeling. We have to win this basketball game."
No, it's not Williams's pitch to his team before the 2001 title game, in which the Terrapins beat Indiana. Rather, it's Williams in a home video game version of such a moment, and he's there for one reason. His players play them. Recruits play them. It's yet another way -- albeit a hipper, new millennium-type, consumer-based way -- for coaches to promote their programs and reach the kids who might, some day, play for them.
"You get in a lot of living rooms with that game," Williams said. "Of course, I don't even know how to plug it in, but . . . "
Williams and the 12 other coaches who appear in Electronic Arts Sports' new "NCAA March Madness 2004" receive just a few thousand dollars apiece for their roles as motivators and strategists. Some -- such as Williams, Oklahoma's Kelvin Sampson, Florida's Billy Donovan and Utah's Rick Majerus -- have been to the actual Final Four, with actual players, coaching in actual games.
Others, such as Fran McCaffrey, the coach at North Carolina Greensboro, or Tim Buckley, who coaches at Ball State, are off the mainstream radar. The game, though, is one way to get on it.
"The kids will see me, and if a kid's making a decision [on which school to attend], I'm not saying he'll choose us because we're in the video game," McCaffrey said. "But if you're not even in it, then you must be one of the bottom teams in Division I, in the kid's mind."
Three game makers -- EA, Sega and Sony -- are licensed by the NCAA to produce video games based on college sports. At the pro level, where athletes can be paid for their participation, the task is fairly straightforward: Find a marquee figure, such as Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, and both build and market the game around his skills and image. That's the formula for EA Sports' hugely popular "Madden NFL 2004." Game makers, though, must work within the NCAA's guidelines when producing college games. No names of players. No accurate likenesses. No money back to the kids.
"When you look at the bylaws, there's only so much the video game manufacturers can do with us," said Melissa Caito, the NCAA's director of licensing and brand management. "They want to push the envelope and make the games more real, and we want to protect amateurism, so we work collaboratively."
It is a market the NCAA clearly wanted a piece of. Projections predict the global market for video games to top $35 billion this year. As NFL, NBA and NHL games became popular in the early 1990s, executives at the Collegiate Licensing Corp., the Atlanta-based company that holds the NCAA's licensing rights, watched colleges being left behind.
"We felt it was important for teenagers and people in their twenties, the people that play these games, to have a college option," said Pat Battle, president of CLC. "Sega and Sony and EA have done a good job capturing the things that make college sports college sports, the pageantry and the fight songs and those kinds of things."
They can't, however, use the players.
"I'll be honest: It would be nice if we could do that," Battle said. "Every year, the companies come to us and say, 'We could sell a lot more video games if we could do that.' "
So they fudge it. NCAA rules allow the game-makers to use uniform numbers and statistics from the previous year to come up with a game that reflects an actual team. Last year's Maryland team, for instance, would have a point guard wearing No. 25 who was a better passer than shooter -- ostensibly, former Terrapin Steve Blake. The football version, for instance, has a speedy, shifty kick returner for Maryland wearing number 34.
"I know it's me in the game," said Steve Suter, Maryland's speedy, shifty kick returner who sports number 34. "We love the games, but that's one of the main reasons we play, so we can play ourselves against other teams and players we play" in real life.
Only former college players -- such as former Duke guard and current Chicago Bull Jay Williams on the cover of Sega's "NCAA 2K3" or Carmelo Anthony, formerly of Syracuse, now of the Denver Nuggets -- can promote the college game. The current players haven't had any uprisings to protest the use of their loosely based images.
"I've never had one of our kids say they wanted anything else," McCaffrey said. "They think it's cool."
Even if the players wanted change, it would take a monumental shift in NCAA policy. Schools, not players, make money from the sale of jerseys with specific players' numbers on them.
"The NCAA operates, literally, like a cartel in terms of you have to play by their rules or not play at all," said Kevin Kovalycsik, a professor of sport economics and finance at Seton Hall's Center for Sport Management.
"When you take a look at the athletes, on one hand you say they're being taken advantage of, but on the other hand you say if there wasn't an NCAA, they wouldn't have the opportunity to go to school and play sports. . . . The NCAA is crafty. Whose image and likeness is it in these games? There's a gray area there, and they can fall back on that. But at the same time, how do you distinguish between amateur and professional sports when colleges are operating like professional sports?"
EA, for instance, turns to the people the NCAA doesn't regulate -- the coaches. This year's game, which came out just last week, is the first to incorporate motivational and strategic speeches from coaches. But for several years, the company has relied on coaching staffs around the nation for scouting reports on teams' game plans and tendencies.
"If there's a way to make games more realistic and provide more authenticity, we're going to find a way to do that," said Brian Movalson, senior brand manager at EA. "With the college game, the stars seem to be the coaches. The players always change, but the guys that are there for 20 years are the coaches."
And the group is savvy enough to know that, even if they can play the games, they might as well be involved.
"Our guys at Illinois, they played all the time," said first-year Kansas coach Bill Self, who spent the previous three years with the Illini. "I never knew what was going on. But from what I heard, the kids love them and play them all the time, so I got involved.
"I'm not sure a kid's going to choose our program because of it, but I can't imagine anything negative coming from it."