EA SPORTS, the development team behind American football franchise Madden NFL 25, has expanded its partnership with the National Football League to scale the game’s official esports series.
As a part of the refresh, the Madden NFL 25 Championship Series will include Australia as an official region and partner with USAA as its official insurance partner.
The Madden Championship Series is a long-running esports competition organised by EA SPORTS and the NFL. For the new season, the event will once again have a prize pool of $1.7m (£1.32m). The esports series also welcomes USAA (United Services Automobile Association) as its newest partner. The insurance company will have a custom stadium created in-game, host activations and help create content all season long.
The esports series traditionally starts with the Madden NFL Classic, the season kickoff event that will take place during the early access period of the new game. The Kickoff Classic will take place between August and September, with the finals broadcast on September 4th. The overall prize pool for the event will be $100,000 (£77,000) and the players will also receive MCS points that will be useful later in the season.
The season will then turn to monthly challenges which will also award a total of $600,000 (£464,000) in prize pool for the best players across four competitions: Kickoff Challenge, Most Feared Challenge, Unstoppable Challenge and Zero Chill Challenge.
After the last challenge, the best players will advance to the Madden Bowl, the season-ending event taking place during the Super Bowl Weekend in February 2025. The event traditionally takes place at the same time as the Super Bowl and will award the best players $1m (£770,000) in prize money.
