CYBERSPORT : BANKING ON BIG NAMES.

Byline: Tom Hoffarth

One of the most expensive budgetary considerations for the electronic sports game makers isn't from investing in newer technology. It's hiring the big-named athletes to represent their product.

Six-figure deals are the norm for companies like Electronic Arts, Nintendo and Sega searching to lock in high-profile athletes in the highly competitive video game market.

EA Sports - which discovered this phenomenon early when it got John Madden to endorse its NFL games - continued its push at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Atlanta last week.

Introducing its new ``Knockout Kings'' cyberfight game for PlayStation systems, EA Sports trotted out Sugar Ray Leonard and Oscar De La Hoya, not only as paid salesmen for the demonstration at the convention (Leonard, by the way, beat De La Hoya in the cyber confrontation that included specially-made boxing posters to promote the contest), but the company also paid for exclusive rights to use recreations of Muhammad Ali, Evander Holyfield, Pernell Whitaker, Marvin Hagler, Sugar Shane Mosley and Ray Mancini - 38 famous boxers in all. Leonard, De La Hoya and Mosley worked with EA Sports also as consultants on the game.

Recently, Nintendo released its Kobe Braynt NBA game - which did not include Michael Jordan's likeness because his rights fees were too steep for the company.

Then you have a company like Irvine-based VR Sports, which announced last week the release of VR Baseball '99 for PlayStation. The company's big-name endorser on the box: The Angels' Darin Erstad.

``We were attempting to form a partnership with an emerging major-league star,'' said VR Sports director of marketing Paul Sackman.

That, and Erstad fit their budget.

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PHOTO Havoc in Hotlanta: Sugar Ray Leonard vs Oscar De La Hoya