Much was justifiably made last week over the announcement from ESPN and EA Sports over the introduction of Virtual Playbook, a new graphic enhancement that marries video-game graphics and live announcers in TV studios. The technology, more than a year in active development, is far more illuminative for describing actual game strategy than the hackneyed, painful-to-watch practice of placing a group of studio hosts on a fake indoor field for a simulated game of touch football.

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For EA, however, this also is a deeply immersive piece of product placement. Rather than a simple background element or a thinly veiled infomercial, Virtual Playbook is at once meaningful programming and a marketing presentation for EA’s suite of football video games. And with Virtual Playbook segments on ESPN often running in excess of five minutes, the value of the related exposure to EA already has stretched in to the millions.

“We’re beginning to evaluate and compile those numbers, and should have something together in the near future,” said Peter Moore, president of EA Sports, which has a long-term programming, licensing and events partnership with ESPN. “But there’s no question, having our Madden engine, our watermark, all up there for those kind of stretches in high-demand programming like [‘NFL Sunday Countdown’] is a huge, huge plus and is of tremendous value.”

The Virtual Playbook effort will not be limited to football. Future applications are already being contemplated with ESPN for other sports including soccer and basketball. The latter is particularly salient for EA Sports as its game license with the NBA, as well as one with the NHL, is not exclusive, and as a result, their titles for those sports have faced stiff critical and sales competition in recent years from 2K Sports.

“Virtual Playbook is going to get better as we all, frankly, figure out how to best use it and get used to it,” Moore said. “It’s going to be a very important tool. We’re committed to quality, and if we don’t continue to evolve in every facet of our business and show that to the consumer, they’re going to turn away.”