Kotaku reports that this is the day of Madden for the past two years. This year, they’re waiting until the 22nd of August, but it may be that yesterday, August the 8th, ends up being an even more significant day for Madden.

Cut back about a decade.

I’ve long been a fan of Baseball Mogul, the game that allows you to play as general manager as your favorite team of slugging renegades. (I’ve in fact, been playing it again recently thanks to Sara’s abrupt discovery of sabermetrics). Ten years ago, the game was out, but the company couldn’t afford an MLB license. Thus, all the teams were renamed variants of the same teams (often from the next city over in the same state) and all the players were renamed. Often with the same first letters of their name – thus, you could guess that Karl Groofey of the Columbus Rebels was probably Ken Griffey – especially since the stats were the same.

And don’t tell me that renaming all the MLB players wasn’t a fun job for SOME intern somewhere.

Anyway, an important decision was handed down this week regarding sports and gaming. From Blogcritic (via Wonkette).(Another link)

Yesterday a district judge ruled that MLB cannot claim ownership to major league players’ stats, since the ballplayers are considered public figures and therefore their performance on the field is owned by the public domain.

Therefore, notifying you that Carlos Zambrano has walked 85 batters this year comes to you at no extra cost.

This obviously has the most impact for Fantasy sports – if MLB had won, they could have charged a licensing fee to Yahoo and ESPN for their fantasy sport leagues, which Yahoo and ESPN would have had to pass on to Joe blow – unlike today, where finding a free league is comparatively trivial. (Side note: I’ve pointed out before it probably would have been disastrous as well – fantasy sports are a huge motivator for maintaining interest in a sport)

But the more intriguing angle is what this means for EA, who not too long ago spent half a billion smackers for the exclusive rights to make an NFL game. I argued that paying what EA paid was ludicrous even then, when it was percieved they got the whole enchilada. But I don’t see why this ruling would prevent a Sega or Midway from making an NFL game. They probably couldn’t use the NFL logo, or likenesses of the players. But this ruling would seem to imply that they could use the names and the stats. And if they have those, its not impossible to to imagine someone competing on gameplay or price. Baseball Mogul did it, with just the stats, for years.

Of course, the case is a long way from winding its way through all the appeals. Still, you gotta think it’s a decision that’s making some high powered lawyers squirming somewhere.