EA Sports, the franchise known for creating the Madden series, along with other popular sports video games, has officially teamed with ESPN this week, to allow fans to vote for the Madden ’14 cover athlete, chosen in what other form but tournament style. This is not the first year where fans have been given the opportunity to vote (The Madden NFL Cover Vote has proven to be extremely popular with the fans, garnering over 33 million votes since its introduction in 2011). This year does have a unique (and to be honest awesome) twist, as Madden celebrates its 25th birthday. The vote this year will include two brackets, one composed of 32 current NFL stars and one of 32 “old-school” NFL legends, with the winner of each bracket facing off in the finals for the right to appear on the cover. Some of the modern stars include the young franchise quarterbacks including Colin Kaepernick, Andrew Luck, RG3, and Russell Wilson, as well as Adrian Peterson, Rob Gronkowski, and Julio Jones. As for the legends, guys like Joe Montana, Barry Sanders, Deion Sanders, and Jerry Rice are all featured.
To vote and check out all players involved, click here: http://www.easports.com/madden-nfl/extension/madden-nfl-25-cover-vote . Every team has two representatives, one in each bracket.
Also, for the first time ever, SportsNation, a hit show on ESPN2, will debut a limited window of live Twitter voting during their show every Tuesday from 4-5 p.m. ET on ESPN2. Voting starts now and will continue up until the reveal of the winner on Wednesday, April 24. Fans can then tune into SportsNation every Wednesday to get the weekly results of the Madden NFL 25 Cover Vote, and watch hosts Marcellus Wiley and Charissa Thompson as they provide in-depth analysis and debate the results. Cover Vote participants and other special guests will also be appearing on SportsNation and other ESPN programming for the duration of the campaign to make their case and attempt to earn fan votes.
When one thinks Madden cover however, it is impossible to have a conversation without bringing up the dreaded “Madden curse” which may steer some fans away from voting. Since the Madden series began putting players on the cover in 1999, coincidently (or not) many of the cover players have gone on to either get injured, or endure rough seasons. For example, Garrison Hearst, Daunte Cullpepper, Marshall Faulk, Mike Vick, Donavan Mcnabb, Shaun Alexander, and Vince Young have all been cover athletes sin 1999, and all were either hurt that same year, or went on to have some of their career worst seasons. The curse has started to dissipate over the past few seasons however, captivated by Calvin Johnson’s record breaking season in 2012.
Updates will be provided on how the voting is going along until the winner is ultimately announced. Madden ’14 comes out Tuesday August 27th at midnight.
