For a few months in 2025, I had started thinking about making my own football board game. I was even thinking of maybe trying my hand at a Kickstarter.

I was envisioning a game board modeled after a football field, with a little football token and a little 1st down marker. The 2 players would play competing cards against each other that represented play calls, and then roll dice to determine the outcome of the play. I hadn't quite figured out how the length of a game would be determined, or the specifics of how the different play cards would play off of each other. I also had vague visions of a team-building aspect in which each player could draft a selection of "star" players on the team, who could be optionally invoked at specific times to swing a play in that team's favor.

It was all very early and conceptual.

But as far as I knew, there weren't any football board games on the market. Oh sure, there were football-themed skins of legacy board games. You know, NFL Monopoly (or the more generic NFL-Opoly), NFL-themed chess and checkers sets, and stuff like that. But I wasn't aware of any board games that were about modeling or simulating the sport of football. Well, not entirely. I did have an old VHS-based football board game, and I remember playing a pen-and-paper football game with a family friend when I was young. And of course, I was aware of Blood Bowl. But there weren't any "real", modern football board games, that I knew of. At least, I had never seen one on the shelves of any board game stores I had ever visited.

So imagine my surprise, when I was holiday shopping at Target, and I saw this game, NFL Gameday on the shelf!

I was contemplating making my own football board game before I knew these games existed.

I looked at the back of the box, and the board looked almost exactly like what I had envisioned for my hypothetical football board game. The ball and 1st down marker are even magnetic to prevent them from accidentally shifting too much during play! That's a good idea that I hadn't come up with! And low and behold, the players are playing opposing offensive and defensive play cards against each other. This looked like a simple, and possibly even more elegant version of what I was dreaming in my head. Someone had already beaten me to it.

But, as I read the rules, I realized that this game was far simpler than what I would want from a football board game. So maybe my dream game didn't quite exist yet? Or maybe it does, because while researching information about this game, I stumbled onto another game that I had never heard of before, called 1st & Goal (review coming soon!). And that game, looked like a more sophisticated version of NFL Gameday, and closer to my vision of a hypothetical dream football game.

I just had to play this game, and also try to track down a copy of 1st & Goal to see if a football board game would actually work.

I was inspired a few weeks ago by a Twitter post from Ryan Moody (@ShutdownSafety), who asked why people are being so negative about football video gaming, and why people aren't making content. Well, I decided that I'd make some content sharing some of my optimism about the future of football video gaming in the next few years. I posted a video to my YouTube channel, but loyal blog readers can read the full transcription here.

Football video games have been in a rut for a while now. The exclusivity deal between the NFL and EA didn't only kill NFL 2k series, it also may have killed the NFL Gameday, NFL Fever, NFL Blitz, and other series as well, some of which had game releases as late as 2004. All Pro Football 2k8 is now eleven years old. Backbreaker came and went nine years ago, leaving EA as the only major publisher still making football video games. EA's own NCAA Football series is now in the fifth year of its hiatus (the optimist in me still prefers to use the term "hiatus" instead of "cancellation"). This has all left football video gamers with nothing but mediocre Madden releases for years.

EA's NFL exclusivity may have put the final nail in the coffin for other games besides just NFL 2k.

All that being said, I am actually very optimistic about football video gaming come 2020 or 2021.

New indie games on the market

First and foremost, Madden's 5-year complete monopoly on consoles was broken this year with the releases of Canuck Play's Maximum Football 2018 and Axis Games' Axis Football 18. For the first time since 2013, there are football games on consoles not called Madden, and for the first time since 2009, there are football games on consoles that are not published by EA.

So why do I still consider football gaming to be in a rut?

...

Just saw this article in the online version of the Wall Street Journal. According to the article, Electronic Arts (EA) has settled a class action anti-trust lawsuit that alleged their exclusive contracts with the National Football League (NFL), National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and Arena Football League (AFL) constituted monopolistic behavior. If the settlement is upheld by the court, EA will owe a small sum of money to consumers who purchased any of their Madden NFL, NCAA Football, or Arena Football video games for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, Wii, PlayStation 3, or Xbox 360.

I doubt that many gamers will be able to actually claim the money owed to them, since I'm sure EA will demand receipts that show a new purchase of the games (and honestly, how many people actually keep receipts for every game that they buy?). I'm also not sure how the settlement will treat consumers who purchased applicable games used, or consumers who resold the games (i.e on eBay or to GameStop).

The most disappointing thing though, is that although EA is agreeing not so sign exclusive deals with the NCAA or AFL, there is no mention of the status or future of its current deal with the NFL. If EA is not forced to relinquish its exclusive deal with the NFL, then this settlement is a very hollow victory for football gaming fans.

I still have a lot of questions, but the prospect of a return to open competition on football video games should be very exciting for football fans! Even if it doesn't apply to the NFL. I hope that companies like 2K, Natural Motion, Sony, and Microsoft will release competitors to EA's NCAA Football over the next few years. I'm disappointed that NFL 2K, NFL Fever, or Backbreaker NFL don't seem to be any more likely, but I hope companies will step up to the plate with new titles like NCAA Football 2K, NCAA Football Fever, and Collegiate Backbreaker.