Over the last few years, the rise of new esports, including the NBA 2K League, has given Madden a lot more competition for fans and viewers. Big sponsorships like the ones announced today Madden 23 Coins, combined with a successful season through late spring 2019. will go a long way to establishing Madden as a premier North American esport.

On Sept. 6. EA Sports' Madden NFL stream booted up for the first time since the Aug. 26 shooting in Jacksonville, Florida that left two competitors dead and many others injured. The black screen flicked to Madden 23's signature yellow, with a countdown at the top ticking down to the Jacksonville tribute livestream's start. Tweets of support, many connected to the #WeAreMadden hashtag, scrolled across the display.

Twitch—and, in particular, Twitch Chat—is a place for reactions, just another social media platform where large swaths of people, often anonymous, come for connection, whether it be through genuine friendship, good-natured meme'ing, or harmful trolling. Twitch Chat is not often a place for mourning or grief. Perhaps even more than on other social media platforms, it's not easy to tell what's an authentic emotion or what's a meme when everything's a meme, even in death.

Madden 23 competitors Eli “Trueboy” Clayton and Taylor “spotmeplzzz” Robertson were killed when fellow competitor David “Bread” Katz opened fire at the Madden Classic qualifying event at the GLHF Game Bar. Like the Jacksonville tribute stream, the shooting was captured live on Twitch as fans watched Clayton and a competitor play digital football. You can hear the shots on stream, and as event attendees started to scream Cheap Mut 23 Coins, Twitch Chat realized what happened—people were getting shot.