John Madden never lost his passion for the game. EA Sports Madden NFL lead gameplay producer Clint Oldenburg learned that firsthand on a visit to Madden’s Goal Line Productions studio in Pleasanton, Calif., in the spring of 2012. Oldenburg, who was just an intern then, and a few other producers walked past Steve Young and Jerry Rice shooting a commercial on their way to a back room where Madden was sitting at a large table with several screens hung up on the wall.
The group was there for its annual trip to watch football with Madden and discuss the upcoming video game they were developing. Oldenburg eventually conquered his nerves when it was his turn to talk about pass protection, but Madden interrupted him. Suddenly, the former NFL journeyman offensive lineman was getting grilled by a Hall of Fame and Super Bowl-winning coach.
“Just having played in the NFL on my resume, that wasn’t enough for Coach. He wanted to really know if you knew what you were talking about,” Oldenburg said in June. “And, fortunately, I passed his quiz. After that, you could see he had relaxed a little bit. He put a little smile on his face like, ‘All right, this guy understands the game.'”
Madden retired from coaching in 1978 and stepped away from the broadcast booth in 2009, but he was always dialed into what was going on in the sport. And, starting with the first Madden NFL release in 1988, he made it a point of emphasis to ensure those who created the game were, too. His meetings with EA Sports would discuss everything from trends in the league and strategies to rules and safety measures.
“If he was going to put his name on anything, especially a video computer game, it had to be authentic,” Madden’s long-time agent Sandy Montag said last month. “It had to be real.”
Madden continued his mission to maintain that realism in the annual meetings with EA Sports through last year. Just three days after Fox’s “All Madden” documentary that helped encapsulate how seriously Madden took the video game — in addition to his coaching and broadcasting careers, of course — aired last Christmas, Madden died in Pleasanton at 85 years old.
“I think initially it was disbelief. Everyone was feeling pretty good after that documentary came out because they talked a lot about the video game, not only Coach’s career, but it was so sudden after that,” Oldenburg said. “And then, very quickly afterwards, it was a team-wide sentiment of, ‘What are we going to do to honor Coach? We gotta do something.’”
One choice stood out: Putting Madden on the cover of Madden 23. Madden had already been on the cover for several versions of the game in the past, but it’s the first time he’ll do so since 1999. It’s a fitting callback given the image is the same one that was used for the first release of the game in ’88.
And when fans start playing Madden when it releases Aug. 15, the first thing they’ll experience is the Madden Legacy Game. It’ll be a matchup between NFC and AFC rosters consisting of players who meet the bar of those who made his famous “All Madden” teams. Madden will be the coach for both teams with his younger self on one sideline and an older version on the other.
Beyond the game, EA Sports dedicated a field to Madden at its headquarters in Redwood City, Calif. The company also made a $5 million contribution to the John Madden Legacy Commitment. Over the next five years, half of the money will go to four educational non-profit organizations and the other half will be used to create the EA Madden Scholarship in partnership with the United Negro College Fund to support students at 12 HBCUs.
📍John Madden Field 🏈@EAMaddenNFL | #MaddenDay pic.twitter.com/p0VmnioRcC
— EA SPORTS (@EASPORTS) June 1, 2022
Madden’s family and Montag were involved throughout the ideation process for all of the tributes. Although Madden wasn’t concerned about his legacy, they wanted to help ensure that it lives on. Madden NFL being a part of that effort was always in the plans.
“Since John retired from broadcasting — you know that people unfortunately don’t live forever — so we talked about, ‘How long should the video game go?'” Montag said. “You talk about legacies and John never really wanted to talk about legacies. He always said that it’s for other people to decide where he fits in. The younger generation of football fans, a lot of them learn football through Madden. John was a teacher. He loved to teach, even as a coach. And he taught classes on how to watch football when he retired from coaching, and he taught on television. And I think his legacy of continuing to have the younger generation learn football through the game of Madden was important to him.”
“I think it’s the perfect way to honor him.”
John Madden will get to coach players such as Tom Brady through the Madden Legacy Game in Madden 23. (Courtesy of EA Sports)
Initially, there was doubt whether Madden NFL would ever come to be. Two years after Trip Hawkins founded Electronic Arts in 1982, he joined Madden and Montag on a train ride while Madden was traveling to broadcast a game. Hawkins was exploring developing sports computer games and wanted to license Madden’s name for a football game. Madden ultimately agreed, but there was a catch: Hawkins had to find out how to make it an 11-on-11 football simulation before it was released.
“They couldn’t put 22 players on the computer screen because there was not enough computer memory and both John and I felt in the mid-to-late ’80s that this really was never going to happen,” Montag said. “We really just fell into it. And, obviously, it worked out well for everybody.”
About four years later, Madden NFL debuted. Madden wasn’t done with it there, however, as he remained involved in the development process in the years to come while working as a broadcaster.
“He had won a Super Bowl as coach of the Raiders, he was quickly becoming the biggest commentator, not just in football, but in all of sports, and you just don’t want to put your name on something that’s going to fail, Montag said. “If we were going to do this, we didn’t want them just to use his name, we wanted to be part of it in every aspect, specifically the football.”
With that attention to detail, plus technological advancements, the game became more realistic over time. In addition to the commercial success, Madden NFL began to cross over into the real-life game. Players at all levels — youth football, high school, college and the pros — were hooked. Not only did they play the game for fun, but it helped them learn the game.
“John took a lot of pride, as did EA, that their tagline early on was, ‘If it’s in the game, it’s in the game,'” Montag said. “And I think the authenticity of Madden, even to this day, NFL players play Madden to get ready for an upcoming game. We’ve talked to countless players where if you’re a quarterback — and a lot of them play Madden — you could see where the defense might be from your opponent and it’s realistic. Out of everything that went on with EA, he took pride that the game was authentic, and it was real football.”
For Madden, the teaching component was the key. That was part of his job as a coach, obviously, but he also made an effort to do the same as a broadcaster through his conversational style and regular use of the telestrator. To him, Madden NFL wasn’t any different. And just like with his other two careers, he could see the effects.
“One of the things that he used to always talk about, there were even little kids coming up and talking about, ‘Hey, well this is a Cover 2.’ You’re like, ‘Holy crap.’ These kids are much smarter nowadays about football and concepts and things about that because of the game,” EA Sports developer Anthony White, who’s worked with the company since 2005, said earlier this month. “That whole teaching the game, using the game as a tool and people learning football by the game itself, coach Madden was all over that.”
Madden’s presence spanned generations as a coach, broadcaster and video game ambassador. Depending on how old someone is, they may know him for all three of those or just one. Regardless, he had an impact that will carry on.
“I think the best thing we can do to keep moving it forward in the way that he wanted to see it move forward is to continue to use it as a tool to grow the sport,” Oldenburg said. “Through his teaching the game of football and broadcasting, he wanted to grow the popularity of the sport that he loved. And I think we’re an extension of that. And so, I think our job is to make sure that we let our fans now in the present and into the future know both of those personas of Coach as a coach and Coach as an ambassador of this sport through his video game.”
This past development cycle was the first since Madden NFL’s inception that its namesake was not a part of that process. He may be gone, but the goal is to continue to build the video game in his image.
“We won’t be able to share that with him, but I’m sure he’s probably looking down and giving a wry smile, if you will, about it,” White said. “Everything that we are doing and will continue to do will be 100 percent inspired by Coach and his influence in the game.”
Obviously, Madden NFL isn’t the only way Madden will stay present. Those who knew him, his fans, the Raiders and the NFL community as a whole also share that responsibility.
“I think it’s important,” Montag said. “We’ve had discussions with the NFL, and I’ve had discussions directly with the commissioner about how do we continue to honor and remember John in the game of football and through the NFL? I mean, he was so important to the NFL up until he passed. He was involved in certain committees within the league. He had such an impact on the game, and I think just continuing it falls on me and it falls on John’s family to continue to make sure that legacy is intact and is handled the way he would want it to be handled.
“It’s great to see — and important — that those continue to live on.”
(Photo courtesy of EA Sports)
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