A Michael Phelps Game?

By Harold Goldberg

Is Michael Phelps, the greatest Olympian of all time, about to work with Electronic Arts on a game? Yesterday, the gold medalist breezed into Strata, the lavish downtown Manhattan locale chosen by EA for the debut of Tiger Woods’ PGA Tour 09.

Was he simply there to meet Tiger Woods, one of his heroes? Tiger moved through the club and into a VIP room so quickly, you’d have thought it was the flash of a celebrity ghost. Phelps was equally stealthy, a veritable Solid Snake as he dashed into the VIP room to meet Tiger.

Phelps got tongues to wagging because he was an unannounced guest at the party. Everyone knew the Olympian would be in town to do Saturday Night Live and to teach kids to swim at a local YMCA. But no one thought he’d be at this particular event.

Would a Phelps game make any sense? Probably not as a console game. It would be too thin, unless you added some kind of adventure fantasy. But as a downloadable entity, it just might be the biggest seller on XBLA or PSN of all time.

Also at the event were beach volleyball gold medalist, Misty May-Treanor, tattoos and all, along with a passel of minor sports, TV and rap stars no one on the red carpet could identify (since no PR type on the line introduced them). Finally, in the Weird Highlight department, a teenage kid ran after Michael Phelps’ SUV, trying to get him to sign a softball. Phelps ignored him. After all, the kid did have a softball, the wrong sport entirely.