Madden Championship Series Makes Major Changes, Adds More Tournaments and Cross-Play

Madden NFL 24 is just a few weeks from releasing, and that means another year of the Madden Championship Series(MCS) is almost here. The MCS saw a record-breaking year in terms of player participation last year, as Dez went on a historic run to become the youngest Madden Bowl champion in MCS history. This year, some big changes will give more players an opportunity to make their mark in Madden NFL history.

Big Changes

The MCS is expanding the number of major tournaments. Last year, the MCS had four major tournaments, coinciding with major moments in the NFL season. This year, there will be six tournaments, one every month from September to January. Players will earn points based on where they finish in the tournament. The top 14 point earners at the end of the first five tournaments will earn a spot in this year’s Ultimate Madden Bowl.

These tournaments will all feature live, in-person finals. Last year’s Ultimate Madden Bowl live final was the first in-person MCS event since 2019. Now, players will have more opportunities to throw down while sitting right across from their opponent. This should make for some great entertainment!

The final major change is that cross-play is coming to the MCS. Players will be able to play against each other across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC this year.

Tournament Format

All MCS tournaments this year will feature a similar structure. The tournament will start with the Ladder Play Phase. Here, anyone can sign up and compete to climb to the top of the leaderboard. At the end of this phase, the top 544 players will move onto the Single-Elimination Phase. Players ranked 33-544 will face off on day one until 32 remain. These 32 will take on the top 32 players from the Ladder Play Phase, who had earned a bye into Day 2.

The top four players from the Single Elimination Phase will move on to face off in the live final for the tournament. These four will face off for the top prize and an MCS belt. All players that make it past the Ladder Play Phase will earn MCS points, which will accumulate over the course of the MCS season. After the first five tournaments, the top 14 point earners will move on to the Ultimate Madden Bowl.

MCS Schedule

The MCS season will begin with the Ultimate Kickoff tournament. Ladder Play for this tournament will take place on August 19^th and 20^th. This is interesting, considering the game releases on August 18^th. This means less than 24 hours after the game officially releases, players will be playing games for thousands of dollars.

This is an issue the MCS has been criticized about in the past. Having players competing for money so soon after the game releases has been a controversial idea. Adding to the debate this year is the fact that the Ultimate Kickoff is the most valuable of any of the MCS tournaments outside of the Madden Bowl. The winner of this year’s Ultimate Kickoff will take home $40,000 and earn 1,250 MCS points. Winners of the other four MCS tournaments leading up to the Madden Bowl will only earn $30,000 and 1,000 MCS points.

I spoke with Madden NFL Esports Commissioner Andrew Echanique earlier this year about having a tournament so soon after release. Here was his response: “For us, one value feedback from all of our players and really look closely at how we can take this into account as we think about our competition structure. We do conduct post-event surveys with all of our players and really look at things like that. I think for us, one thing that is incredibly important is when we think about our season as we mentioned before, we really look at those key moments throughout the schedule, obviously kickoff through Super Bowl, but the Ultimate Kickoff itself does provide an opportunity for all players as soon as they get their hands on Madden to be able to showcase those skills and be able to compete against the best in the world. For us when we look at both registration and participation for the Ultimate Kickoff this year in comparison to previous years, we saw tremendous growth and that I think is a testament to people wanting to engage early on and being able to showcase those skills really early. But with that said, we’re certainly open to feedback from our players and look to continue to explore ways always to improve the MCS.”

Those other four tournaments are called the Ultimate Challenge tournaments. These tournaments will take place each month from October to January. The payout and points for these four tournaments are identical. The schedule for the Ultimate Challenge tournaments is shown below:

Prizes

This year, the MCS has a total prize pool of $1.7 million. The top 32 players in each tournament will earn money and MCS points, with all 14 Madden Bowl qualifiers earning money. Players who compete will also be able to earn in-game items to add to their MUT squad.

The full payout and point breakdown for the Ultimate Kickoff and Ultimate Challenge tournaments are shown below:

Ultimate Kickoff

Ultimate Challenge 1 – 4

Ultimate Kickoff – USD $200,000

Ultimate Challenge 1 – 4 – USD $125,000 per Challenge 

Ultimate Madden Bowl – USD $1,000,000