EA Announces the Winner of the 2007 EA SPORTS Craftsman NASCAR Challenge

Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) today announced the winner of the 2007 EA SPORTS™ Craftsman NASCAR® Challenge, Brandon Coppinger. After five intense rounds of virtual racing at the Homestead-Miami Speedway, Coppinger beat out his competitors and won the $10,000 Grand Prize and bragging rights as the #1 NASCAR 08 video game player in the country. The 2007 EA SPORTS Craftsman NASCAR Challenge encompassed in-store and online tournaments across 11 U.S. cities, offering gamers and NASCAR® fans from across the country the opportunity to compete against some of the best. Last weekend the semi-finalists from the online and in-store qualifying rounds were flown to Miami to compete in a virtual head-to-head racing competition at the Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday, November 18, and Brandon Coppinger emerged victorious. "I’ve been playing video games since the first Nintendo came out, probably when I was about five years old, and the NASCAR Challenge has given me the chance to compete against the best,” said 2007 EA SPORTS Craftsman NASCAR Challenge winner, Brandon Coppinger. "After all my practice, I’m excited to be named number one and of course to be bringing home 10,000 bucks! I can’t wait to repeat my success again next year.” Brandon Coppinger, a 21 year-old college student from Goodlettsville, TN, combines his love of NASCAR with his love of video games. Growing up, he went to countless NASCAR events and has transferred that passion into video games. He loves the challenge of playing NASCAR® 08 and competes against his friends on all the tracks that the game offers. He plans to apply the $10,000 prize money towards the purchase of a real-life Legends Car so that he can race at the Nashville Fairgrounds. Coppinger, who hopes to become a sportscaster one day, was especially thrilled that the 2007 EA SPORTS Craftsman NASCAR Challenge was announced by ESPN host Brent Musberger. The 2007 EA SPORTS Craftsman NASCAR Challenge Finals took place during the Ford 400, the season-ending NASCAR® NEXTEL Cup Series event in which Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Tony Stewart (the NASCAR 08 cover athlete) and other celebrated NASCAR drivers raced at the Homestead-Miami Speedway. On the same day that Jimmie Johnson was awarded the 2007 NEXTEL Cup, Brandon Coppinger was named EA’s #1 NASCAR 08 player in the country. "This year was the debut of the new EA SPORTS NASCAR Challenge, and we’re thrilled it was such a huge success,” said Brian Movalson, EA SPORTS Marketing Director. "We were fortunate enough to host the finals at Homestead-Miami Speedway in conjunction with the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series and it was even more exciting to see our sixteen finalists share the NASCAR experience with the real race car drivers they look up to.” "The virtual racing we saw at Homestead-Miami Speedway was a dramatic show and a microcosm of what it takes to compete and win in NASCAR—commitment, passion, practice, nerves of steel, and as Brandon Coppinger demonstrated, patience and consistency on the race track,” said Blake Davidson, Managing Director of Licensed Products at NASCAR. "We want to congratulate EA SPORTS and Craftsman for pulling off an exciting and competitive tournament, as well as all the competitors who participated.” The EA SPORTS NASCAR Challenge is one of four Challenges from the EA SPORTS Challenge Series that also included regional tournament competitions for Madden NFL 08, NBA LIVE 08 and NCAA® Football 08, and have been taking place across North America over the last four months. For more information about the 2007 EA SPORTS Craftsman NASCAR Challenge please visit: www.easportsracing.com/challenge or www.craftsman.com/nascarchallenge. About the EA SPORTS™ Challenge Series The EA SPORTS Challenge Series was created to reflect the competition of real-world athletes and provide official tournaments for the very best players of EA SPORTS games to battle for bragging rights and prizes. EA held its first gaming competition in 2001 with the inaugural Madden Challenge, offering hardcore players of the Madden NFL Football franchise, the chance to test their skills with the best from around the country. The success and excitement of the Madden Challenge generated a need for EA to open up the competition to fans of different sports, including the NCAA Football Challenge, the NBA LIVE Challenge, and the NASCAR Challenge. About EA SPORTS™ EA SPORTS is the leading interactive sports software brand in the world, with top-selling titles and franchises including Madden NFL Football, FIFA Soccer, NHL® hockey, NBA LIVE basketball, NCAA® Football, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® and NASCAR® racing. EA SPORTS is the center of the interactive sports experience through: Authenticity, Innovation, Competition, Lifestyle elements. Its immersion in the sports world extends beyond games into a rich sponsorship portfolio of activities and involvement: including the EA SPORTS All-American program, the EA SPORTS Maui Invitational, NBA Europe Live presented by EA SPORTS and more—that has helped establish the company as a leading force in the world of today’s athletes. EA SPORTS videogames are developed and produced for videogame systems, personal computers, cellular handsets and the Internet. For more information about EA SPORTS, including newsletters, podcasts, and fantasy football action please visit www.easports.com. About Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, cellular handsets and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EA SPORTS™, EA™, EA SPORTS BIG™ and POGO™. In fiscal 2007, EA posted revenue of $3.09 billion and had 24 titles that sold more than one million copies. EA's homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA's products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com. About Craftsman Craftsman, the Official Tools of NASCAR, has sponsored the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series since it began in 1995. According to a 2004 EquiTrend survey, Craftsman is rated the No. 1 brand in the nation for overall quality. Craftsman tools, merchandise and related services are sold nationwide through Sears Full-line stores, Sears Hardware stores, Sears Dealer stores, Orchard Supply Hardware stores, Kmart stores, and specialty catalogs and online at www.craftsman.com, www.sears.com and www.kmart.com. About NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, Inc. (NASCAR), which began in 1948, is the sanctioning body for one of America’s premier sports. NASCAR is the No. 1 spectator sport – holding 17 of the top 20 attended sporting events in the U.S., the No. 2-rated regular season sport on television with broadcasts in more than 150 countries, and has 75 million fans that purchase more than $2.1 billion in annual licensed product sales. These fans are the most brand loyal in all of sports and as a result, more Fortune 500 companies participate in NASCAR than any other sport. NASCAR consists of three major national series (NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series, NASCAR Busch Series, and the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series) as well as eight regional tours and one local grassroots series. NASCAR sanctions 1,500 races at over 100 tracks in 35 states, Canada and Mexico. Based in Daytona Beach, NASCAR has offices in Bentonville (Ark.), Charlotte, Concord (N.C.), Conover (N.C.), Los Angeles, New York, Mexico City and Toronto.