This year, the Madden franchise is making its mark on the University of Oregon. Paul Swangard, director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing program in the Lundquist College of Business, will incorporate the game into the introductory sports business class, "Sports Business and Society."
"It's an idea I've had for a couple of years now," Swangard said. "I've been in contact with Electronic Arts about trying to use the franchise mode of Madden as a platform to run a simulation of how a NFL team is run."
That's right, Mom and Dad. Video games in the classroom, something that parents and adults criticize teens for playing too much, are now going to be utilized as learning tools.
The plan for this fall is to use a sampling from the SBUS 199 class to pilot his idea, using the Northwest's only NFL franchise, the Seattle Seahawks, as the model. The selected students will make decisions a NFL team manager would make, ranging from areas such as player salaries and salary cap room, to what kind of amenities the stadium will offer.
They will then simulate 10 years of play to see how their decisions affect the team's performance.
"Part of the exercise is to compare how real life decisions are played out in the simulation," Swangard said. "It will be interesting to see if a good decision on paper will reflect in success in the video game."