EA Sports

EA Sports (stylized as EA SPORTS) is a brand of Electronic Arts that creates and develops sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they tried to imitate real-life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network" (EASN) with pictures or endorsements with real commentators such as John Madden. It soon grew up to become a sub-label on its own, releasing game series such as NBA Live, FIFA, NHL, Madden NFL, and NASCAR. The best selling EA Sports series is FIFA series with over 100 million units sold.

Most games under this brand are developed by EA Canada, the studio of Electronic Arts in Burnaby, British Columbia, as well as EA Blackbox, Vancouver, British Columbia and EA Tiburon in Maitland, Florida. The main rival to EA Sports is 2K Sports. Notably, both companies compete over the realm of NBA games.

EA Sports inherits its motto "It's in the game" from the parent company, Electronic Arts.

Unlike some other sports game companies, EA Sports has no special ties to a single platform, which means that all games are released for the best-selling active platforms, sometimes long after most of the other companies abandon them. For example, FIFA 98, Madden NFL 98, NBA Live 98, and NHL 98 were released for the Sega Genesis and the Super NES throughout 1997; Madden NFL 2005 and FIFA 2005 had PlayStation released in 2004 (FIFA 2005 was also the last PlayStation title to be released); and NCAA Football 08 had an Xbox released in 2007. Madden NFL 08 also had Xbox and GameCube releases in 2007, and was the final title released for the GameCube, with Madden NFL 09 following as the final Xbox title. Additionally, NASCAR Thunder 2003 and NASCAR Thunder 2004 were released not only for the PlayStation 2, but for the original PlayStation as well. EA Sports brand name is used to sponsor English Football League One team Swindon Town F.C. from the 2009–10 season onwards and the EA Sports Cup in the Republic of Ireland.

2002 EA Sports 500

The 2002 EA Sports 500 was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series stock car race held on October 6, 2002, at the Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Alabama.

Summary

The race is the 30th in the 2002 Winston Cup season, and was broadcast by NBC. Jimmie Johnson of Hendrick Motorsports was awarded the pole position after qualifying was canceled, while Dale Earnhardt, Jr. of Dale Earnhardt, Inc., who won the previous race, led the most laps and won his second consecutive EA Sports 500. The race was also the first Winston Cup race at Talladega after the track had installed SAFER barriers. Vocal group Little Big Town performed the national anthem, while former National Football League quarterback Ken Stabler was the grand marshal.

To spread out the tightly-grouped packs, NASCAR officials reduced the size of the fuel cells from 22 US gallons (83 L) to 13 US gallons (49 L). The race also featured a record $250,000 leader bonus if the winner of the race becomes the Cup points leader, with Johnson, Mark Martin, Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and Rusty Wallace being the eligible drivers.

CampingWorld.com 500 at Talladega

The Alabama 500 is a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stock car race held at Talladega Superspeedway in Lincoln, Alabama. The race is one of four Sprint Cup races currently run with restrictor plates, the others being the GEICO 500 in May, the Coke Zero 400, and the Daytona 500. Through 1996, this race was normally held in early August or late July. In 1997, it was moved to early October due to the uncomfortably hot summer temperatures, and sometimes unpredictable summertime thunderstorms in the Alabama area. In 2009, the race moved again, this time to November 1 as part of a realignment agreement with Atlanta and Fontana (where Fontana earned a race in the Chase and Atlanta gained the Labor Day weekend race).

In 1998, the name of the race was swapped with that of the Talladega spring race. The fall race became known as the Winston 500 for three years in order to promote the Winston No Bull 5 program.

This race has been on average the most consistently competitive in NASCAR history. The race has broken 40 official lead changes in 1971, 1973, 1975–1978, 1983–1984, 1989, 2000, and every year in the period spanning 2003–2012. In 13 of these, the race exceeded 60 lead changes, most recently in 2012 with 65, and in 2010 the race reached 87 lead changes, one short of the motorsports record set in April.