NFL Board Games

NFL Gridiron Edition Monopoly

• Monopoly is one of the best known board games available. In 1999, Hasbro introduced its first NFL-based Monopoly game to the public: NFL Gridiron Edition Monopoly. The game is played the same as original Monopoly with a few differences--the main one being that instead of trying to create a real estate empire, players build football empires using all of the teams in the NFL. The Gridiron Edition was in production for one year and is now considered a collector's item. Some NFL teams have created Monopoly games of their own, including the Chicago Bears, Denver Broncos, New England Patriots, Oakland Raiders and Philadelphia Eagles. A few teams, such as the New York Giants and the Indianapolis Colts, have been granted Super Bowl editions. Hasbro also introduced to the Monopoly line create-your-own-team versions titled My NFL Edition Monopoly and My NFL Fantasy Players Edition Monopoly. Most of the team-titled games were introduced for a limited time and are now considered valuable among sport memorabilia collectors.

Hasbro

• Hasbro has participated for years in the marketing of the NFL by being officially licensed by some teams to produce board games bearing a team's logo and colors. Hasbro presented Connect Four games for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots. The Patriots also sanctioned a Jenga game in their honor, while the Oakland Raiders preferred a version of Travel Yahtzee.

Tudor Games

• Tudor Games are more commonly known for their electronic football board games. Early games of the 1940s were crude when compared to modern games but were still the primary wish on every little boy's Christmas list back then. In the late 1950s, the figures were given shape to look like real players to enhance the gaming experience. In the early 1960s, Tudor Games became the first game publisher to be officially licensed to use NFL teams for its games, which led to the current versions of the electronic football board game.

  In 1972, Tudor Games was one of the first companies to bring football in from the field and place it on the dining room table in a non-electronic board game. The game was titled NFL Strategy, and it invited players to participate in a more intellectual form of the game than simply enacting brute force and running with the ball. The game is not about team statistics but about the plays and how to properly execute them in order to win the game.