EA Sports is set to release College Football 25 this summer, though an exact date has yet to be announced. It marks the first time in more than a decade that the video game developer will return to the college football space.
However, some of the most important awards in the sport are not going to be included. Oh well!
According to Pete Nakos of On3, the National College Football Awards Association has declined to participate. That means that the top awards, outside of the Heisman Trophy, are not going to be featured in the game.
- Maxwell — player of the year
- Bednarik — best defensive player
- Biletnikoff — best wide receiver
- Davey O’Brien — best quarterback
- Doak Walker — best running back
- Groza — best placekicker
- Jim Thorpe — best defensive back
- Outland — best interior lineman
- Ray Guy — best punter
There is only one reason for the NCFAA to decline: unnecessary greed. The association’s president, Mark Wolpert, told Nakos that it turned down an offer from EA Sports because it was not enough money.
The offer that has been made is not adequate for the rights fee for the awards.
— Mark Wolpert, via On3
He said that the awards, which were included in NCAA Football 14, were previously undervalued and did not provide any further details about the new offer. All he told Nakos was that it was a “nominal increase based on the 2014 number.”
Okay… and?!
College Football 25 will be the same with or without the awards.
I am very excited for the new game and I do not care at all that the awards will not be featured. While I wish that they would be included, it could not matter less to me. EA Sports apparently feels the same.
It was not something that was representative of any either major awards, assigning image rights and usage rights to a game which we all believe is going to be very popular and going to sell a lot of copies based on past history. There’s an appetite for that game. And if brands are going to be represented there, we want to be compensated properly. So when I explained that to the EA rep, the response came back to me that if we choose not to do that, they’ll just make their own awards up and put them in the game.
My thought at that time was, “Well, you have approached us about the importance of authenticity in the game, yet you’re very quick to dismiss awards, some of which have existed for eight decades. So how is the game authentic when you don’t have the authentic awards in it?”
— Mark Wolpert, via On3
If my Road To Glory player wins an unnamed award for “top quarterback” instead of the “Davey O’Brien,” it serves the same purpose. I do not care if it has the exact name. Not even a little bit. It is the same thing.
This only hurts the exposure for the actual awards. The National College Football Awards Association choosing to opt out because EA Sports did not offer enough money is absurd. They should not care about compensation. They should care only about exposure— like Lane Kiffin.
I first learned of all the different awards and their names through the NCAA Football video game series as a kid. It made me aware of their existence. It made me want to have my players win those awards with in Dynasty Mode.
That is no longer the case. They will not be featured in College Football 25, even though it is not “authentic.”
Who cares? Not me!
Perhaps the National College Football Awards Association will reconsider because opting out is a bad, bad move.