This year features the return of EA Sports’ College Football game after a decade. Earlier this month, EA officially revealed the title for the game, EA Sports College Football 25 which is set to release during the Summer. A full reveal of the game is coming in May. However, more details have been shared regarding the opt-in process for players who want to have their name, image, and likeness appear in-game and will get paid for it.
Initially, up to 85 players per school will appear on rosters. All 134 schools in the Division 1 Football Subdivision (FBS) of the NCAA will be in the game with all agreeing to be officially licensed. All players who opt-in will get $600 eventually, plus a copy of the game. They will remain in-game for their entire careers but have the option to opt-out of future editions. Athletes who remain in the game for multiple years will be paid annually. Those who transfer to other schools will continue to be compensated as long as they are on a roster.
EA Sports Vice President of Business Development said that they looked at the deals completed with their other sports titles, including Madden, NHL, and EA Sports FC, to come up with the $600 payment. The deal comes with no expectation of services from the athlete and a guarantee of payment regardless of the game’s success.
“We feel very proud that we’ll be the largest program, likely the highest-spending program,” Sean O’Brien told ESPN. “And really an inclusive opportunity with an equitable distribution of funds across the board.”
In addition to the FBS, there will be more than 100 additional NIL opportunities for athletes to work with EA Sports. This can include social media posts, on-campus promotions, advertisements or even being the game’s cover athlete. Things might go beyond football players with plans to pay athletes from other men’s and women’s college sports to promote the game.
Frank Arthofer, President of OneTeam Partners, who worked with EA Sports on the licensing agreement, told ESPN that these NIL opportunities will be negotiated directly between EA Sports and the athletes. Arthofer called the scale for what EA Sports is trying to do, with 11,000-plus opt-ins, is “unprecedented.”
“There’s nothing been done on this scale that EA is doing, where every student-athlete that participates in the game is guaranteed revenue,” said Cory Moss, the CEO of the Collegiate Licensing Company, which has worked with EA on the game.
This ambassador program for the game will likely be larger than any other similar program it has for other EA titles. “The vehicle is obviously a college football game,” O’Brien said, “but we really want to celebrate the fact that we’re back in college in doing that.”