EA has taken its ‘Need For Speed’ franchise to the next level by teaming up with a group of the worlds top drift and racing drivers and has of course named  the team “Team Need For Speed.’ This may bring EA brand recognition, advertising, and maybe acceptance  with race fans. The racing styles supported so far are limited, but there are more drivers to be announced. Some of the drivers already announced are:

Vaughn Gittin Jr. (Drift/USA), Matt Powers (Drift/USA), Edward Sandstr?m (GT Racing/Europe), Patrick S?derlund (GT Racing/Europe) and Mad Mike Whiddett (Drift/USA, New Zealand, Japan). Additional drivers will be announced in the future.

If you think that driving is the only responsibility of  the drivers you are incorrect. The team will be filmed. The subject of the film being the team, the drivers themselves, and their cars for a 12 part series made by film maker Will Roegge. There will also be a tent set up by EA, known as the ‘Need For Speed’ lounge, where fans can play the games and meet ‘Mad’ Mike Whiddet and Matt Powers.

I would like to know if all this will do more than raise the brand recognition for the ‘Need For Speed’ series or just serve as another race team sponsor that might fade away sooner rather than later. So let me do something a little different today and end with  a question for the readers:

Do you think EA is making a real commitment to supporting real life racing and race car drivers or do you think this is this a short lived publicity stunt?

EA Teams Up With Top Drivers To Form ‘Team Need For Speed’ International Racing Collective [IGN]