EA Sports returns to college football.
After making a college football video game for the last time in 2013, the possibility of the game returning had been on its back. Now it is not. EA Sports Vice President and CEO Daryl Holt told ESPN that the game creator will return to space with “EA Sports College Football.”
“As we look for the momentum we grow in sports, it all starts with the passion of our fans and the opportunities of what interests them,” Holt said. “I don’t think a visit where you go out with a piece of EA Sports brand clothing, let someone not say,‘ Hey, when does college football come back? “”
It will, at some point. Holt said there is no date when the game will return or even a date when the return will be announced which will not be returned this year.
To make the game a reality, EA Sports partnered with collegiate licensing company CLC to make sure they had FBS schools, traditions, uniforms and game books, among other things, ready to play. More than 100 teams will take part.
For now, EA Sports plans to move forward without lists that include names, images or likenesses of actual college players. Current NCAA rules prohibit athletes from selling their NIL rights while in college.
However, those rules are likely to be amended sometime next year, whether by the NCAA, state legislatures, or Congress. It is still unclear whether the evolving rules will allow for the kind of group licensing arrangements that would be required for EA Sports to negotiate with athletes to use their names in the game.
Holt said they will oversee the NIL discussion if and when things change, but it’s too early for that to happen. He also said that what happens in NIL legislation will not change if the game happens or when it ends up on the shelves.
“We’re just going to be in control of everything when it develops and we’re ready,” Holt said. “That won’t be a problem for us. But really, that’s not an answer for us right now to decide. We’re as many passengers as anyone.
“So we make sure to deliver what our college football players would want in a game. And that starts with a very immersive experience and there are a lot of things we can do to bring the real college game and game day to the virtual world. . “
Holt said EA Sports is still at the beginning of the game development process, building the team and deciding in which direction they want the game to go. Talks about the game’s recovery began more than a year ago, Holt said, and the company’s momentum combination combined with technology they’ve seen on Next Gen platforms like the Sony PS5 and the XBox Series X further reinforced his decision to return to space.
“What we had as plans for growth and expansion of our portfolio, college football has always been at the top of my list, personally, working with the Tiburon Studio where it was created,” Holt said. “So it was an easy conversation inside to say, ‘Here’s how we’d approach it by design and here’s how we can move forward.’
“This has been going on for a while and it certainly wasn’t a ‘Wait and see what happens here’, even while continuing legislation is being proposed. It’s more about what we think we can do around the game. [game] players “.
A change from previous iterations of the game (for now) will be the name of the game. In previous iterations of the game from 1997 to 2014, the title of “NCAA Football” was used, along with the year. Before that, he was “College Football USA” for two years and, in the first two years of the game, “Bill Walsh College Football.”
Holt said the plan for the restart will be not to have the NCAA name, but to use “EA Sports College Football.”
“It all really starts with the fact that we see college football as it happens. There’s a lot going on and there’s a lot going on in sports,” Holt said. “EA Sports College Football gives us a name and a brand to work on some things that could evolve, as well as what we really focus on outside the door, which are really the FBS Division I schools and the road to the FBS Championship. University Football and the University Football Championship.
“So EA Sports College Football, which we just heard, is the right name for the product not only now, but also as we move forward.”
The game, whenever he returns, will be the first college football title since “NCAA Football 2014,” which had Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson on the cover.
ESPN journalist Dan Murphy contributed to this report.