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Suddenly, sports gaming competition is everywhere. Unless you're into the NHL.

The big picture: EA's return to making baseball games this week is the latest in a recent rush of moves that will restore competition to video game baseball, golf, football and more.

  • Fans of many sports video games complain that decreased competition among largely annualized releases has made the games worse. Increased competition = increased quality?

The intensifying playing field:Baseball — EA vs. Sony (sort of): EA's new acquisition, Metalhead, makes "Super Mega League Baseball," an arcade-style game with fictional players.

  • The deal puts EA back in baseball game development for the first time since 2006.
  • Take Two snagged a semi-exclusive on the MLB license until 2014, when it got out of baseball gaming.
  • That left Sony's "MLB The Show" standing. It remained PlayStation-exclusive until this year, when an extraordinary new MLB deal forced Sony to also release "The Show" on the arch-rival Xbox.

Golf — Take Two vs. EA vs. ... Nintendo?: Take Two got into making golf games in 2020, with the acquisition as it rebranded "The Golf Club" series into "PGA Tour 2K."

  • That filled a void left since 2015, when EA bailed on its long-running golf series that had been long-associated with Tiger Woods.
  • In March, EA announced a return to golf gaming with the development of "EA Sports PGA Tour," just as Take Two signed former EA cover athlete Woods for their game.
  • Bonus: Nintendo is bringing back "Mario Golf" in June. No Tiger Woods there, but they do have a well-dressed Wario.

Football — EA vs. Take Two: Big-time video game football has been EA's "Madden" series and nothing else since EA landed the NFL exclusive in 2004.

  • That 2004 deal killed Take Two’s well-regarded rival series “NFL 2K” and all but ended serious football competition.
  • Last March, Take Two announced its long-missed "NFL 2K" series would return in a deal that lets Take Two make "non-simulation" football games.

The other football —EA vs. Konami: EA's "FIFA" series is dominant here, having turned the tide against former category leader "Pro Evolution Soccer" from Konami.

  • Konami’s been struggling to battle EA, but fancied an incredible 2019 name change to “eFootball PES” might help. 
  • Doesn’t seem to have, and the series did not get a full new release in 2020. Its 2021 plans are unclear.

Basketball - Take Two vs. maybe EA: Take Two’s “NBA 2K” series rules here, with EA barely still in contention.

  • “NBA Live” has simply sat out this formerly annual rivalry multiple times this past decade including no-showing 2019 and 2020.

Hockey — EA: EA's got the NHL to itself.

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Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.