Fully Licensed NFL Football Management Simulation Lets Users Run Their Own Pro Football Franchise

REDWOOD CITY, California -- January 18, 2001 -- Electronic Arts (Nasdaq:ERTS - news), the world's largest interactive entertainment publisher, today announced the release of Front Office Football 2001, a football management simulation game for hard-core pigskin fans. Front Office Football 2001 includes the NFL™ and NFL Players Inc licenses allowing players to act as General Managers (GM) of a real-life professional football franchise.

Front Office Football 2001 gives players the opportunity to manage all aspects of their franchise and compete against other franchises in the quest for a winning season. Front Office Football 2001 offers a completely new user interface that includes the NFL team logos as well as updated 2000 NFL team rosters.

``With the full NFL license in the game, Front Office Football 2001 gives football fans the chance to experience a pro season as the GM,'' said Barry Dorf, producer of fantasy football products at EA.com. ``The role of the GM is simulated down to every minute detail putting armchair GMs through their paces to see how they would stack up running a real-life team.''

Key Features

In Front Office Football 2001, the GMs draft and trade players, negotiate salaries and contracts, set ticket prices and watch as the game re-creates the on-field action with an advanced engine that simulates every play of every game. Also in the game, players can participate in a competitive bidding process for new coaches and scouts for their franchises. In addition, an expanded game plan allows more control over game play. For GMs who want to extend their management reach beyond the office and down to the sideline, Front Office Football 2001 lets users develop their team's offensive and defensive strategies. As an added bonus, the game even includes an option of calling plays or changing strategies on-the-fly.

Front Office Football 2001's simulation engine replicates plays via text updates customized at a speed determined by the user. Players can simulate that week's match-ups around the league or even an entire season without having to watch each play. Entire seasons can be played in five minutes and more than 100 seasons can be played with one franchise.

In-depth team analysis tracks player and team statistics for individual games, seasons and careers and also takes into consideration the team's cohesion factor, measuring how well the defensive line matches up with the linebackers or quarterbacks with the wide receivers. It also evaluates how well the players perform together. The longer the team plays together, the higher their rating and projected success.

On the business side of the franchise operation, Front Office Football 2001 supplies in-depth balance sheets that are updated after each season. Balance sheets break down costs and revenue from TV contracts, ticket sales, player contracts and stadium maintenance to help determine annual profit. Users can even change teams between seasons.

At the end of each season, Front Office Football 2001 announces Player Awards that include League MVP, All League and Rookie of the Year.

Aspiring cyber GMs can log onto http://www.easports.com to manage an NFL team. The product can be found in the EA SPORTS™ Arena channel on EA.com. Front Office Football 2001 carries a price of $24.95 and can only be purchased and downloaded via the Internet.

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