Take Two Hunting for MLB Exclusive?

If you can't beat them at their own game, beat them at some other game. That seems to be the message underpinning rumors of a Take Two deal to gain exclusive rights to the Major League Baseball license. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the rumored deal would give Take Two sole ownership of the MLB license for use in videogames, in much the same manner that EA tied up the football arena in late December with their five-year exclusive NFL deal.

If the story turns out to be true, why does it feel like a hollow victory for Take Two? Partially, I suppose, because baseball games, while successful, don't begin to approach the kind of sales numbers generated by a football title such as Madden NFL 2005. Because football is so popular in the U.S., it's conceivable that gamers might take to a pigskin title from Sega based on a fictional league, or even get behind another college football game from Visual Concepts. On the other hand, I can't imagine anyone getting up for a fictional baseball game from EA, or a minor league sim from the folks at 989, for example.

If the Take Two/MLB deal goes through, it would be just another fragmenting of the sports genre, further segmenting the licensed sports landscape in much the same way the EA/NFL hookup did. In addition, one can only imagine that a deal of similar fashion would follow for the NBA (and even the NHL) license. Such is the world we sports gamers inhabit these days.