Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman “won” the contrived, overhyped “contest” to determine who will grace the cover of Madden 15, the only officially-licensed NFL video game that hasn’t really improved much over the last decade due to the lack of competition.
Sherman now wants to expand the perceived “honor.”
“I’ve been trying to get the Legion of Boom on the cover, and EA has been fighting me,” Sherman told reporters Monday, via Seahawks.com. “So if everybody wants to start a petition to get the Legion of Boom on the cover, here it is, here’s an open invitation.”
EA surely has resisted (or perhaps more accurately ignored) Sherman’s overtures because EA would have to pay the other three starters in the secondary -- safety Earl Thomas, safety Kam Chancellor, and cornerback Byron Maxwell -- for the ability to use their likenesses on the cover. And EA would derive little extra benefit from doing so.
The concept of the cover vote ensures a spike in sales among fans of the player who graces the cover and the team for which he plays. Paying three lesser-known guys from the same team to be on the cover won’t result in a sufficient uptick in sales to justify the extra expense.
If Sherman really wants to do it, here’s how to make it happen. First, he should persuade the members of the Legion of Boom to accept as compensation for being on the cover 1/4th of what Sherman will receive. Second, he should tell EA that whatever he’s getting paid will be divided equally among himself, Thomas, Chancellor, and Maxwell.
So if everybody wants to start a petition for Sherman to do that, here it is, here’s an open invitation.