THE WRITING ON (AND OFF) THE WALL A MADDEN-ING TIME.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH

Even when Tom Hanks navigated through a crowded group on the Third Street Promenade to duck into the J.Crew store on a brisk Sunday afternoon, hardly a head turned.

Honestly, most everyone's eyes on the 1200 block of Third Street, between Wilshire Boulevard and Arizona Avenue in Santa Monica, were glued to a bank of portable video screens stretching half a block long. The masses stacked six deep under the white awning on the center divide couldn't be distracted.

John Madden was their celebrity sighting of the day. And he wasn't even there.

This was the Los Angeles stop in the 32-city Madden Challenge NFL video game elimination tournament, attracting far more than just the 512 spots allotted for the participants who pre-registered online for this third annual event.

While shoppers ventured on the periphery, gamers tried to plunder Cover 2 defenses with shotgun formations, intent on qualifying for the $50,000 finals at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on Dec. 11.

It hardly mattered that real NFL contests were dancing on the big screens at Yankee Doodles' sports bar just up the street. To this group, there was only one game in town.

``I love to watch football,'' said David Grant, aka Dred, from St. Petersburg, Fla., who recently won the Atlanta tournament and came to L.A. to follow the competition. ``But if I can't do both, I'd rather be playing `Madden.' ''

To even attempt to explain how this video-game culture thrives for impressionable males ages 4 to 64, start with the fact there are ``Madden Clubs'' on the Internet (www.maddenauthority.com) to network with. There's also the Madden World Syndicate, which has its own bylaws and a site updating results of the PlayStation Football League (PFL).

The West Coast Madden Ballers have a worldwide database on their site, players with screen names like King Mur from Burbank, Reality from Canoga Park and N8mre from Long Beach.

For this Madden 2005 tournament, a group that goes by GMB - the GetMoney Boys - hop city to city trying to land one of their members in the finals.

And none of this is directly connected with, but seems to have some kinship, to the startup last year of Major League Gaming (mlgpro.com), the official professional video league for console-game players. It had its stop in L.A. last September (actually, in less-than-glamorous Bellflower) with the so-called ``Southern California Slapdown.''

It's obvious most kids today learn everything there is to know about sports by playing video games, as opposed to watching the athletes actually perform in person or on TV. The faster pace of the game controls cater perfectly to the fast-food mentality of the players. Even when a league decides not to exist, anyone on Electronic Arts' ``NHL 2005'' for PlayStation 2 or Xbox with any regularity might fail to notice.

EA Sports, the computer game company that created the Madden-sponsored NFL series 15 years ago, doesn't even need to ask for the $10 entry fees that participants ages 13 and up are asked for to cover costs. It donates a portion of the proceeds to an NFL charity called the Youth Education Town.

The L.A. stop on the nationwide tour that finishes next week in San Francisco and Seattle usually generates the most attention, as hundreds show up on the day of the event hoping to get a sniff of the competition.

``These cats all know the routine; some of 'em start lining up at 6 a.m. (for the 10 a.m. daylong tournament),'' said Mic Shane, a promotions manager for EA Sports. ``That's pretty impressive.''

By 9 p.m. Sunday, they still hadn't determined a winner.

``This could be awhile,'' said L.A. tournament organizer Charles Smith, a former regional champ who goes by his Madden login, $olution.

Or, as Hanks might say, they're in a league of their own.