Madden NFL 13 Cover Athlete to be decided by fans

Two athletes from each NFL team represented in Head-to-Head matchups as fans vote for their favorites

Posted on Mar 8, 2012 - 11:57am EST

EA SPORTS and ESPN announced today the return of the Madden NFL Cover Vote campaign, where fans can cast their vote for the next athlete to grace the cover of the franchise.

Last year, nearly 13 million votes were cast. Tenth-seeded Cleveland Browns running back, Peyton Hillis, trucked through the six week competition to take the Madden NFL 12 cover.

This year’s competition will incorporate more athletes and more chances to vote as the field has been expanded to 64 NFL players. Beginning today through March 21, fans can visit the SportsNation Facebook page to choose among the 64 candidates in a play-in round (each matchup features two players from the same NFL team) to advance to the official 32-player, seeded tournament.

The winners of the play-in round will be unveiled with the official seeded, 32-player bracket on March 21. To ensure their favorite player advances to the next round, fans are encouraged to vote daily and tweet their picks using #MyMaddenCoverVote on Twitter.

The Madden NFL 13 cover vote marks the third-consecutive year that EA SPORTS has asked fans to help shape the face of the Madden NFL franchise through a cover athlete voting campaign. It also marks the second year of its collaboration with ESPN’s SportsNation.

Madden NFL 13 is developed in Orlando, Florida by EA Tiburon and will be released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this summer.