Eagles

EA Sports College Football Returning to a Video Game System Near You

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Feb 2nd, 2021 · 12:05 PM EST

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Russ tells me that this is big breaking news and that I need to get it up on the website.

So here it is –

EA Sports is BRINGING BACK college football for your video gaming pleasure:

Breaking: EA Sports is rebooting its college football series for Next Generation consoles.

The announcement ends the hiatus that the game has taken since then-Michigan QB Denard Robinson appeared on the cover of NCAA Football 14. pic.twitter.com/rMniJUDDeW

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) February 2, 2021

NCAA Football 14 was hugely popular, as was the entirety of the series dating back to the late 90s. A lot of sports gamers preferred it to Madden.

Basically what happened is that three major conferences (SEC, Big Ten, Pac 12) pulled trademark licenses back in 2013, which really threw a monkey wrench into the series. There was a lot of murky legal territory with the concept of name, image, and likeness (NIL). Thankfully it’s one of the things that’s changing in the college sports landscape, with a lot of momentum for the NCAA to loosen their iron grip and allow players to profit off their individual brand. There is generally bi-partisan political support for this, though different views on how best to proceed.

In years past, these rules resulted in players not being named in the video game itself. I think I had the 2007 version, and all of the rosters had accurate numbers, heights, and weights, but no names. You used to be able to download a third party update that would add names to all of the players, but that wasn’t part of the original release for legal reasons.

But yeah, this is a pretty big deal. The game was really popular and there hasn’t been a new version in a long time. Good news for people who enjoyed playing it.

Update here –

From EA: "Development of EA SPORTS College Football is just underway, with launch timing still to come as the project progresses in the years ahead."

We're looking at 2-3 years probably. And by that time the players should be in position to be paid (NIL laws and player's union)

— bryan wiedey (@pastapadre) February 2, 2021