NBA Live tipping off tourney

Nationwide sports-game tournaments are nothing new to Electronic Arts. The publisher has run its Madden Challenge for several years, bringing together some of the country's best Madden NFL players to compete for cash prizes.

Tomorrow, EA officially takes its sports game tournaments beyond the gridiron. The first NBA Live Challenge begins in New Jersey, before hitting seven more cities through early December.

The competition sees gamers going one-on-one against one another on the Xbox version of NBA Live 07. Each region's first-place finisher will be flown to Las Vegas during the NBA All-Star Break for a shot at a grand prize of $50,000.

Registration is limited to 128 contestants per city and is now open on the contest's Web site. A list of each NBA Live Challenge stop is listed below.

Date/Location

10/13 Jersey Garden City Mall, Elizabeth, NJ
10/20 King of Prussia Mall, King of Prussia, PA
10/27 Concord Mills Mall, Concord, NC
11/3 Galleria Mall, Houston, TX
11/17 Hollywood & Highland, West Hollywood, LA
12/1 Great Lakes Crossing, Auburn Hills, MI
12/6 Target Center, Minneapolis, MN
12/8 Navy Pier, Chicago, IL