EA Sports to Give FBS Players Option to be Featured in New NCAA Football Game

It's hard to believe it's been over a decade since the last EA Sports NCAA Football video game was released. If you had the itch to create a dynasty with the Mountaineers or perhaps create a school and build the program from the ground up, you had to hold onto the PS3 or XBOX360 and pop in NCAA 14.

The NCAA Football franchise was easily one of the most, if not the most, popular sports video games on the market but it came to a halt when a lawsuit by college athletes came about over the use of their likenesses in the games.

Recently, the NCAA passed a rule to allow student-athletes to profit off their name, image, and likeness and not long after, EA announced that it would be bringing back the college football video game. The game was originally set to return this summer but has been pushed back to the summer of 2024 to make sure the game is everything everyone expects it to be.

In previous games, EA used rosters that displayed Geno Smith as QB #12 in an attempt to avoid the name, image, and likeness issue. However, avid players of the game would spend a few days customizing the rosters to make them accurate and more realistic. Those roster files could be downloaded with a couple of clicks on the controller and boom, you had the entire roster of every team from top to bottom.

This time around, it will be a little different. EA will allow FBS players the ability to opt-in to the video game, according to Michael Rothstein of ESPN. If a player does not want to be put into the game, a generated player will be put in his place. And yes, the student-athletes will receive compensation for being in the game, per the ESPN report:

"Details -- such as how much an athlete will receive and the structure of payments -- are still being finalized, but the EA Sports representative said the goal is to be "as inclusive and equitable as possible." On the OneTeam website, the company stated that if the influence of individual sales couldn't be figured out -- including for video game licensing -- then "revenue will be divided equally among the athletes included in each licensing program."

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