The upcoming video game EA Sports College Football is scheduled to be released next summer. And despite lingering lawsuits against EA Sports over licensing rights, that is not going the delay the release of the game. A spokesperson from the video game company recently spoke to On3 Sports and revealed that EA Sports is moving forward with its plans to bring back college football next year.
“We’re incredibly excited to bring back an authentic college football experience for fans and athletes that have shown such passion for the franchise, and we’re looking forward to delivering it in Summer 2024,” the spokesperson said. The Brandr Group sued EA for tortious interference in June, arguing it attempted to retain players’ rights during group licensing contracts. Last week, EA filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
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EA Sports published a college football video game every year from 1998 to 2013. The game, which was first called Bill Walsh Football before changing to NCAA Football, was discontinued due to multiple lawsuits. The most notable lawsuit came from former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon and 19 others, as they sued the NCAA for not allowing athletes to make a share of revenue generated from the use of their name, name image and likeness in broadcast and video games. A judge later ordered the NCAA to pay $44.4 million in attorney fees along with another $1.5 million in costs to lawyers for the plaintiffs in the case.
For EA Sports College Football, players will be allowed to benefit from their name image and likeness. On3 Sports said in June that the cash pool to pay athletes will be around $5 million, but the company has not made any offers to athletes as of this writing.
“EA SPORTS has announced that we are working with OneTeam Partners to manage the process for college football athletes to sign up and opt-in to be included in our upcoming EA SPORTS College Football game,” EA’s spokesperson told On3. “There has been speculation around our plans. But it is just that – speculation. To be clear, we have not yet made any offers to any college athletes for this game.”
EA Sports College Football will likely include 120 FBS schools. The 10 FBS conferences have agreed to be in the game, but with the realignment going on in the sport, there likely won’t be 10 conferences when the 2024 college football season begins.
