NCAA Football's Cancellation an Unfortunate Series of Events - RaychelSnr's Blog

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NCAA Football's Cancellation an Unfortunate Series of Events Stuck

Posted on September 27, 2013 at 10:23 AM.

(19)

I was so excited.

All good love stories have to start somewhere. Mine started in the summer of 1998, just before the college football season kicked off -- that day my parents brought home to me a game called NCAA Football 99.

It was after receiving that game that I found a message board community about the game, people passionately talking about how to run the option and how to scheme offenses. In a strange sort of way, my love affair with sports gaming and this community began with that single NCAA Football game and continued to grow for the last decade plus.

No one wins with the cancellation of the NCAA Football series.

Gamers certainly don't, with one less sports gaming option than before. EA doesn't, with a source of profit now gone. Colleges and Universities don't, with a source of income (no matter how small) and a great advertising tool gone. College football certainly doesn't, as a gateway for millions of fans into the game is now no longer available. The developers don't even begin to see positives, as many are going to find they don't have places within EA in the coming weeks and months.

The only people who might have won something yesterday, the only people who might've gotten a victory would be the people making shareholders happy at EA.

I have been told and had the story corroborated with others that the media and fans of NCAA knew before much of the NCAA team did that the work they were doing on next year's college football game just before a late-afternoon meeting was all for naught.

Some on the NCAA team were undoubtedly putting together pieces of next-year's game just before that fateful meeting began, probably polishing the new customization options that were likely going to be present within the game next year in order to give fans the opportunity to have an authentic college football experience.

But it was too much for EA the corporation to bear.

I suppose it makes sense to cut a title before you go on a generational leap to avoid spending all of that money and all of those resources on a game which wasn't going to succeed in the marketplace. Losing the conference insignia and NCAA logo were bearable, but the past few weeks saw another group of licensees begin to balk at the game due to legal ramifications.

Several reports earlier this summer pegged that only one school had backed out of the future of the College Football series, most rumors and reports were that it was not an insignificant school. Two separate sources confirm that school as a Big Ten powerhouse, the kind that losing is a huge blow to the franchise. Those sources also confirmed several other schools were questioning their affiliation with the video game and were prepared to jump ship.

And then late yesterday news of a settlement between EA and the O'Bannon team was too coincidental not to be involved some way in the decision to cancel the NCAA franchise. Most likely, the terms of the settlement had been ironed out and finalized early yesterday if not the day before, and all parties were given ample time to prepare their public statements.

It is likely something within the settlement forced EA out of the college football gaming space for a time at least, be it no more player editing within the game or a simple outright agreement not to publish college football titles for a certain amount of years.

Another possibility is that the financial penalties EA paid out were substantial enough that making a college game no longer made sense.

The third thing which had to have contributed to this decision was the recent shake-ups in executive leadership at EA. Andrew WIlson was recently named CEO of EA with Patrick Soderlund, former head of the Battlefield franchise, becoming the head man of EA Sports, replacing Wilson.

In an interview with it24.se, Soderlund expressed his wishes to make sports games less iterative. That is to say, Soderlund wants to make sports games play more differently from game to game than they do now, with new products and new ways to play -- not unlike the disastrous approach Madden started out this generation with.

Soderlund obviously has a much different take on what sports games should be, even much moreso than Wilson. It is possible the sports franchises are heading towards a more digital or subscription based future with that kind of a vision behind it.

It was Wilson, Soderlund, and the rest of the new organizational structure who ultimately decided to axe NCAA Football. You can't shake it any other way, the new leadership team at EA found NCAA Football perfectly expendable.

However, with NCAA Football now gone, EA Sports' lineup now consists of Madden, FIFA, NHL, and UFC.

We don't know if Tiger Woods is coming back, it's doubtful NCAA Football is coming back anytime soon. There is no baseball game. It appears that the company which once ruled sports in every facet now is putting all of its eggs into just a few sports' basket.

Higher development costs and bigger legal risks along with decreasing authenticity into a marketplace which demands more authenticity than ever all made NCAA that much more untenable in the new generation of games. Those factors took what was a profitable franchise for over a decade and made it unprofitable to a set of new faces at the top of the organization.

For NCAA Football to ever return, college football itself will have to change. Universities and the NCAA will have to work out a compensation structure (if any) for players in things like jersey sales, memorabilia, TV deals, and video games.

The only way EA gets back into the game is with all of the schools on board and a guarantee their legal risks are nil. The money and interest in college football is much higher today than it was back when NCAA Football 99 was brought to market, so never say never to a new college football game in the future.

Until NBA Live hits the market in November, no major sports game series has gone away only to come back years later. College football makes a lot of sense to revisit down the line as a viable product, by some measures it is the second most popular sport in America behind the NFL. But for now, there is no good reason to bet on that happening anytime soon.

To NCAA Football: so long old friend, we're going to miss you.

Comments

# 16 MLB Bob @ Oct 14

I completely agree with everything DirectFX said above...zero sympathy for these athletes. Hope the $320 bucks was worth it...O'Bannon..idiot.

# 17 TreyzAllDayz @ Nov 5

EA can drop the 'Sports' from its name. No baseball, no college basketball, no college football. Simply an average Madden game (and NBA?) to go along with a really great NHL and FIFA games. Who cares about UFC? Garbage.

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