EA Sports College Football 25 to Pay $600 to Every Athlete
Today, EA Sports took another step towards releasing their longest-awaited title, College Football 25. The game, set to be released this summer, has opened the opt-in period for players at all 134 FBS programs to have their likeness used in the video game. The compensation will be standardized for players at $600 and a copy of the game – an estimated $70 value.
College Football 25 is the rebirth of EA Sports’ highly popular NCAA Football Video Game that was discontinued in 2014 due to legal concerns regarding the uncompensated representation of college athletes’ NIL. While EA Sports decided not to re-up the licensing with the NCAA and chose to restart the series under the ‘College Football’ title rather than ‘NCAA Football,’ the game will function much the same, with many of the same game modes and features from previous games included after the eleven-year hiatus.
Since the first reports of the game surfaced in 2021, EA Sports and their licensing partner OneTeam had indicated that a standard payment for all players, regardless of popularity, position, or conference affiliation, would take place. While many speculated that the novelty of being included in the game was enough for many student-athletes to accept whatever standard compensation was offered by EA Sports, for those Heisman hopefuls who can command significant payment in their NIL endorsements, the $600 may very well not be enough for their participation in the game.
To combat high-profile opt-outs and amplify marketing, EA Sports has reportedly partnered with college football athletes to become game ambassadors, who will receive additional NIL compensation to promote and market the product. This gives EA Sports the leeway for the current and future titles to sweeten the deal for the biggest stars in the game while not opening up free negotiations for every student-athlete in the opt-in phase. A number of student-athletes who will promote the new product will come from outside of college football as well.
The game is estimated to include the NIL activations of over 11,000 student-athletes, making this the biggest coordinated NIL deal ever, as well as the largest video game group licensing project. OneTeam, a major player in group licensing, partnered with EA Sports to secure group licensing deals for students across college football. The company has a long relationship with EA Sports, as they have handled the licensing for the roughly 1,700 athletes belonging to the NFLPA in their negotiations for the Madden series.
Without employee recognition, student-athletes cannot unionize, making the licensing process for a college sports video game quite complex. For other major professional sports, it is the union that negotiates the rights of its players to appear in video games. OneTeam is implementing Learfield’s COMPASS NIL app for student-athletes to opt into the game. This technology was used previously by OneTeam in a great group-licensing effort for Fanatics apparel.
Players are encouraged to opt in by the end of April in order to make time for the construction of player avatars before the summer release date. Those players who decide to opt out of the franchise will be replaced with generic players not representing their likeness –– this has been done before at the professional level with notable figures like Bill Belichick, Barry Bonds, Reggie Miller, and Charles Barkley. Over the next two months, it will be interesting to see if any stars take a stand against the $600 offering.
