EA Sports told The Athletic on Thursday that a recent lawsuit from The Brandr Group will not impact the game’s planned release date in summer 2024 and that the company has not yet made any monetary offers to players for their likenesses to be included in the game.
“The complaint will not impact our development timelines,” EA Sports said in a statement. “The game is on track and is a priority for EA Sports. We’re incredibly excited to bring back college football.”
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The company last released a college football video game in 2013 before lawsuits over the use of players’ name, image and likeness led to its discontinuation. EA Sports has made only a few public comments about the game since the February 2021 announcement that it would return. That included a November announcement about the release date and a May announcement about contracting with OneTeam Partners to allow players to opt into being included in the game. The lawsuit from The Brandr Group prompted additional public comments this week about EA Sports’ production timeline and process of paying players for their inclusion.
“There has been speculation around our plans, but it is just that — speculation,” EA Sports’ statement said. “To be clear, we have not yet made any offers to any college athletes for this game.”
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Separately, a source close to the process told The Athletic that EA Sports remains several months away from determining how much money it will offer players to be in the game. It had been reported that players would earn around $500 each if they opted in (from a total pool of around $5 million) with no royalties. The source, who was granted anonymity in order to discuss deliberations, said EA Sports hasn’t yet had many discussions with OneTeam about what to offer, and there is no rush to do so because the release is still a year away.
“It’s the ‘24 season, so there’s maybe six months to see what that looks like,” the source said. “The goal is to be as inclusive as possible. Ninety-nine percent of these kids in the game, this will be the only NIL deal they ever do.”
Once the offer goes out, players would simply need to opt in to be a part of the game, their likeness would be acquired, and they would receive a preset amount of money. Players who don’t opt into the game would likely see their spot on the roster filled by a generic avatar, as has happened in pro sports games in the past. Players also won’t be prevented from appearing in other video games, the source said.
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Unlike in pro sports, there is no college players union with which to negotiate, but EA Sports’ eventual offer can be expected to leak out quickly because more than 11,000 college athletes will be receiving it. That dynamic implies EA Sports will have to put forth an offer that more than enough players will accept and one that won’t create too much controversy.
“One minute after the offer goes out, it’ll go public and the world will know what the offer is and how it was presented to them,” the source said.
The earlier report of $500 per player sparked backlash among some players’ rights advocates and collective groups, who said players should hold out for more. Active players themselves have offered very little public comment about it.
How EA Sports is acquiring the NIL rights for many of those players is the focus of the recent lawsuit from The Brandr Group, a licensing company that has “exclusive” or “preferred” group NIL rights at more than 50 football-playing schools, including Georgia and Ohio State. The Brandr Group claims that EA Sports had told the company it would go through The Brandr Group to facilitate group NIL deals with its partner schools. Instead, EA Sports announced in May that it would use OneTeam exclusively to facilitate its player NIL deals for the game.
OneTeam does not partner directly with schools, like The Brandr Group, but it has facilitated other college football group deals, such as a jersey deal with Fanatics announced last year. OneTeam has a long history of working with EA Sports and pro sports unions. To sign players up for the Fanatics jersey group deal, OneTeam used the COMPASS app, an NIL management tool from Learfield IMG. That could be an option in this situation as well.
The Brandr Group claims that EA Sports is putting its partner schools in a position where they will violate their Brandr contracts if their players sign group NIL deals without going through Brandr. EA Sports believes school licensing (which is primarily done through the Collegiate Licensing Company) and player licensing can be done separately.
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“We are aware of the complaint that Brandr has filed, and we don’t believe it has any merit,” EA Sports said in its statement.
The Brandr Group also claimed in its lawsuit that EA Sports is pressuring schools to approve their participation in the game by June 30, 2023. The source close to the matter clarified that date is only significant for the schools’ participation, not athletes’. EA Sports has been working with schools for years to gather unique audio and imagery — from jersey designs to band songs to stadium camera angles — to include in the game. It takes a lot of time to build in the details of well over 100 schools; inputting player profiles and roster information is less work-intensive and needs less runway to be accomplished before the launch of the game.
The original plan was for a summer 2023 release, but that was pushed back due to the amount of work needed to build a new game. EA Sports expects to include all teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, which will grow to 134 teams in 2024.
The game will focus on “Road to Glory” and dynasty modes, staples of past editions before annual production was stopped, and it is expected to include the transfer portal and an expanded College Football Playoff. The game will likely only be available on next-gen consoles like PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. Although the game is built on the Madden engine, it won’t be a clone of the NFL game franchise.
“We’re incredibly excited to bring back an authentic college football experience for fans and athletes that have shown such passion for the franchise,” EA Sports said, “and we’re looking forward to delivering it in summer 2024.”
(Photo: Kevin Winter / Getty Images for EA Sports Bowl at Bud Light Super Bowl Music Fest)
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