EA Sports Reveals NIL Plan for Ohio State Players to Appear in 'College Football 25'
The path has now been revealed for Ohio State Buckeyes players to appear in the upcoming video game, "College Football 25."
EA Sports, the developers of "College Football 25," released their offer for athletes from the Buckeyes and other schools to have their name, image and likeness used in the game.
Each of the over 11,000 players with the opportunity to opt in will receive $600 and a copy of the game. This payment would allow EA Sports to use every element of a player (mainly their name, image and likeness) for the duration of their time playing college football.
Players will also have the option to terminate their appearance in later versions of the game, which is set to release a new edition every year. ESPN reported that the value of a copy of 'College Football 25' is $70, which brings the total amount of the players' compensation to $670 each.
Sean O'Brien, the vice president of business development at EA Sports, spoke to ESPN early Thursday morning about his excitement to have a plan in place to compensate athletes for their involvement in the game.
"We feel very proud that we'll be the largest program, likely the highest-spending program," O'Brien said. "And really an inclusive opportunity with an equitable distribution of funds across the board."
O'Brien said he and other executives used the payment template from other EA Sports games like the FIFA, Madden NFL and NHL franchises.
Cory Moss is the CEO of the Collegiate Licensing Company, which worked alongside EA Sports in the development of "College Football 25." Moss told ESPN that while the compensation format was copied from other sports video games, building a plan for "College Football 25" was a whole different animal.
"There's nothing been done on this scale that EA is doing, where every student-athlete that participates in the game is guaranteed revenue," Moss said.
