EA Sports
One of the biggest questions surrounding EA Sports’ grand return to the world of college football was how many players would agree to license their name, image, and likeness, but it doesn’t sound like that’s going to be a major issue based on the number of guys who’ve already opted into College Football 25.
The primary reason EA Sports was forced to abandon the NCAA Football franchise following the release of its final installment in 2013 was the class-action lawsuit that successfully argued the company had illegally profited off of the real, actual players who appeared in the college sports video games it produced.
Now, there was theoretically nothing stopping the developer from continuing to pump out titles featuring generic rosters. It’s not entirely clear why it declined to go that route, but it’s safe to assume it thought a major aspect of the appeal was the ability to control virtual players who mirror their real-life counterparts.
That issue was solved by the advent of the NIL Era, and in 2021, the EA officially announced it was getting back into the game. Since then, we’ve been treated to a steady trickle of unofficial updates that led to the comparative tsunami of details we’ve been treated to since the teaser for College Football 25 dropped last week.
On Thursday, we learned the game will feature all 134 FBS teams and a crew of broadcasters that includes Kirk Herbstreit, Chris Fowler, David Pollack, Kevin Connors, and Jesse Palmer.
EA Sports also announced every player who agrees to appear in the game will get an NIL deal that will entitle them to $600 and a free copy of College Football 25.
There’s still no telling how many guys will opt in when everything is said and done, but we got a promising update courtesy of John Reseburg, as the VP of Global Marketing, Communications, and Partnerships for EA Sports said more than 5,000 players signed up in less than 12 hours after they got the opportunity to cash in.
What an incredible day. More than 5,000 college athletes have opted-in across more than 130 FBS schools…in less than 12 hours. The total keeps growing. Even more excited for future of EA SPORTS College Football! #CFB25 https://t.co/xw6K6F87yf
— John Reseburg (@jrese_original) February 23, 2024
The company said it expects the vast majority of the more than 11,000 scholarship players at the FBS level to agree to appear in College Football 25 by the time it’s released on an as-of-yet unspecified date over the summer, and it sounds like it’s well on its way to achieving that goal.