A new six-year contract for about £488 million between EA Sports and the English Premier League is apparently close to being signed. This arrangement is claimed to be worth more than twice as much as the first one.

The arrangement, which is anticipated to generate more than £80 million yearly, reportedly received a briefing from clubs on Friday, according to Sky Sports. The rights to some of the most well-known teams in the world, such as Manchester City, Arsenal, and Liverpool, will be retained by EA in exchange.

The power of the EPL, which has developed into the most lucrative league in the world because to its enormous media deals, is reflected in the new agreement. The EPL has become a global superpower as a result, enabling it to lure away big names like Erling Haaland.

EA, which recently lost the FIFA license after the organization reportedly requested for over $1 billion, sees the EPL’s well-known brand as a huge hook. EA Sports FC will no longer have access to the World Cup in addition to altering the name for the first time in almost 30 years. But EA has agreements with hundreds of clubs, athletes, and more than 30 leagues, so it can continue to use real-world names and locations.

This offers it a significant advantage over Konami’s eFootball series, which has lucrative agreements with clubs like Barcelona, Manchester United, and Inter Milan but generally falls well behind EA’s soccer behemoth in terms of licensing despite having struck deals with these teams.

With its heavily-monetized FIFA Ultimate Team mode, the FIFA series—now known as EA Sports FC—has been a money-making machine for EA. Despite the slowing of its usual releases, it has enabled EA to continue making money.

In our assessment of FIFA 23, we referred to it as a “bombastic swan song for the game” but bemoaned its neglect of modes outside FUT.

FIFA 23 is an all-too-familiar beast to past years thanks to EA’s Spartan attitude to the modes that don’t generate revenue, and Ultimate Team’s aggressive focus on microtransactions keeps much of the pleasure out of it, we noted.

The absence of license limitations, according to EA, will give the franchise more creative flexibility. Upon the release of EA Sports FC later this year, we’ll be able to judge for ourselves.