Huge decision reached in EA Sports College Football video game
College football players at the FBS level who are eligible will be given the chance to be featured in the upcoming EA Sports College Football video game that is set to debut sometime in 2024, the gaming company confirmed to ESPN. While most expected that players' likenesses would be featured in the game thanks to the new NIL rules, there were some complications standing in the way.
Mostly, the game's creators needed a way to pull together the disparate interests of players into a single licensing effort, and now a group called OneTeam Partners has been charged with leading that cause, EA said.
Players will be required to give their permission for their name, image, and likeness to be used in the forthcoming video game.
How much will the players be paid? That remains to be seen, but a rep from EA said that the company wants to be "as inclusive and equitable as possible" to the players.
EA last issued its popular college football video game a decade ago, back in 2013, after which the company announced that it was discontinuing the game.
That decision followed a court ruling that forced EA Sports to pay compensation to athletes who had previously been included in the product but were not paid.
Then, after the creation of the new NIL rules two years ago, EA went public by announcing that the game would return at some point in the future.
That point in the future is getting closer with every day, but not before EA can figure out a way to pay the college football players who will be featured first.
(ESPN)
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