College Football: Is EA Sports back in the game?

EA Sports has plans to return its popular college football video game but must iron out numerous kinks before the potential release.

EA Sports revealed back in February a bombshell piece of information some of us thought we’d never witness.

The sports gaming giant has plans to bring back a college football video game, which was a fan favorite for a number of years. EA Sports hasn’t released an edition of a college football game since NCAA Football ’14 was available for purchase back in July 2013. This is in large part due to complications regarding the usage of players’ likenesses and images — players believed they should’ve received payment for this act.

EA must iron out a number of kinks and we likely won’t receive the next edition of the game for at least another few years. But per Matt Brown of Extra Points, some details within the EA Sports/CLC proposal (which was provided to FBS schools) have emerged.

Got another copy of the EA Sports/CLC proposal to FBS schools, dated Jan 15, with fewer redactions than previous copies. Here's a bit more info on the money schools may make from the game:

Appears to be a four year license proposal pic.twitter.com/tVNegAXd8P

— Matt Brown (@MattBrownEP) June 25, 2021

The details reveal fans might not be receiving the next edition of the game until the Summer of 2023 — it would be a four-year agreement running from July 1, 2023 – June 30, 2027. This would encompass the EA Sports College Football ’24, ’25, ’26, and ’27 titles.

As far as the guaranteed annual royalties for each FBS school are concerned, a tier system would be implemented — the tier in which the school is located would have to do with its football-related performance across a continuous ten-year period.

You guessed it: The higher the tier, the larger the portion of the guaranteed royalties received.

The above proposal writes, “The revenue in each tier may vary slightly year-to-year based on the number of institutions in that tier, and institutions may change tiers year-to-year based on team performance.”

Gamers could also download in-game content, and the selling of that content would lead to additional royalty and revenue.

The proposed new overall royalty rate (an increase from 8.5%) and the aforementioned guaranteed revenue levels would both be superior for schools than what was included in the previous four EA license agreements.

It’s tough to predict what may be agreed upon in the end, or if we’ll even receive the upcoming edition of the game when we seemingly could (Summer of 2023). The light at the end of the tunnel, however, may be brighter than it once was.

Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) News Update

College athletes profiting off NIL has been a debate for quite some time, and changes are certainly on the way.

NCAA rules previously prevented college athletes from this act, but on Thursday, at least seven states will have laws go into effect that permit profiting off NIL, per Tom Goldman of NPR.

In addition, the NCAA is working to alter the regulations that prevented this in the past.