No exclusive NBA contract for EA's Live series?

I know this is old news but >>> http://sports.ign.com/articles/574/574539p1.html

Has EA taken any further approach to sign an exclusivity contract?

I think EA signed a contract with ESPN few months ago.

Not as far as the NBA's concerned or at least nothing's been reported. The NBA's rejected the proposal, for now at least.

NBA did a contract for some years (something like 5 or something) to multiple companies so there will be no exclusive EA deal atleast for that time...

It's a good thing... A little competition has never hurt anyone.

We'll see again in five or so years when these things come up again...

Actually.. I think the competition has hurt the devlopment of NBA live. I enjoy the 2k series, 2k1, 2k3, 2k4 and 2k5 imo were all superior than live imo, and they killed live in the reviews. However, EA pretty much only cares about sales (and who can blame them? it is a business.) But EA realised one thing: That all it needs to do is bring in one or two "groundbreaking" features, such as freestyle or ASW, and that will be enough to outsell sega... if you remember before the 2k series the gameplay progressively got better.. but now its stalled, and longtime users are just sick of it.

With all that being said, I like the 2k not becuase it makes ea "improve" live, but so i have somthing else to play.

That's all true, but thankfully having competition means that we now have alternatives. The 2K series will improve in leaps and bounds because they have to do whatever they can to move in on NBA Live's market... also that other NBA game coming out. Both of them look to be trying some fairly groundbreaking stuff to build themselves a reputation, whereas EA are just relying on the name to sell NBA Live.