'Madden NFL 12' Cover Voted by Fans on 'SportsNation'

"Madden 12" will have a fan-selected cover this year. "SportsNation" on ESPN2 will host the vote, as fans log on to their website to vote through an extended process of deciding the next cover athlete. It's a unique way to get fans involved in the process, but it will also help create a lot of buzz about the game as it heads toward store shelves.

The vote looks much like an NCAA Tournament bracket, with 32 players seeded in head-to-head "match-ups" that will help decide who makes it to the later stages of the voting. Fans go on the website and select the player they want to win each head-to-head battle, and the player with the most votes advances to the next round. This will continue all the way through a final round of voting with the final two athletes in April. That will give fans the final choice to put their favorite athlete on the cover.

Every year there is a new athlete who appears on the cover of the successful football game, and it has become a huge honor to be placed there. It has been the typical process of selecting an athlete who is very popular at the time, but one who also has a lot of positive buzz. Now that final decision will be up to the fans; the whole voting process has already been opened.

Each voting period will be at least seven days in duration, with the opening round running from March 21-27. The second round will be March 28-April 3, and the rounds will continue up to the finals that take place from April 18-26. At that point the winning athlete will be announced live on "SportsNation," with the game to be released soon after.

It's definitely an elongated process of figuring out which athlete will be on the cover, but this is a unique way of really getting the fans involved. It will serve as a lot of free marketing as well, especially if the hosts of "SportsNation" (Colin Cowherd and Michelle Beadle) set it well on the air. If nothing else, it's at least a fun way to see which players are the most popular amongst NFL fans. With that could come a lot of bragging rights for the players who are going head-to-head in all of these battles.

One of the really interesting possibilities is The 12th Man as the candidate for the Seattle Seahawks in this voting process. That would certainly lead to an interesting cover, but more for the fans of that team than anything else.

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