EA Sports College Football to Include Player Names and Likenesses For All Eligible FBS Players Opting In

[canes21]

Quote: Originally Posted by beau21

Easy for me to say because I'm obviously not a college athlete, but man... why does everything have to be about getting every dollar you can? Can't this one thing just be a "we're happy to be here" and "for the greater good of the fans" situation? I'm sure a business person or agent would poke all sorts of holes in that not making sense, but c'mon.. Even when I was playing in college, I'd have happily been in the game for $0 just because it would be amazing to see myself in a video game and there was no promise of professional ball, so that might be my only chance. I'm still hopeful that most players will lean that way and happily take the $500 to be in a video game but time will tell.

I am sure for the vast vast vast majority of players they will have similar feelings that you did. To just be in the game will be awesome to them. To also get some extra cash is icing on top.

It's hard to find concrete numbers, but most estimates put the average NIL deal between $1,000 to $10,000 and have less than 50% of FBS players receiving any NIL money at all.

Obviously some schools like Texas will have companies doing things like all OL getting $50,000 per year in NIL money, but overall your average FBS player is not really getting all that much in NIL money. The market simply isn't there, and we're in the wild west period right now where money is getting thrown around more than it likely will down the road.

Even with the deals like the Texas OL $50,000/year, and the star players getting their six figures per year, the average player is still just taking in a few grand per year in NIL money if they are receiving any money at all. For many of them, EA giving them $500 is the only NIL money they may have a chance at earning for the foreseeable future. And for the majority of those who are earning any money at all, $500 is still relatively a lot compared to what they are getting from other deals. If you're the starting LG at Florida Atlantic and make $1,200 a year in NIL money and a new opportunity comes around where all you give up is your name in a video game for $500. Odds are you are going to take it.

These are college kids, so who knows what direction they will go, but simple logic seems to indicate that for the overwhelming majority of players this deal will be more than enough for them.

EDIT: This article goes into detail with what I was getting at.

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/spor...-made/3765040/

The median NIL deal is $53 with the average NIL deal for a football player being less than $3,500. Like I said, for the vast majority of these kids, an extra $500 is a big deal compared to what they are getting, if they are getting anything at all.

You can't just look at what NFL players are getting for their likeness and then act as if college players should get similar amounts of money. The median NIL deal isn't even $100 and the average NIL deal is below $3,500 all while the NFL MINIMUM salary is inching towards a million dollars. The value of the average FBS player's likeness isn't even in the same universe of the average NFL player's.

[Cam Fan]

They can 'urge' these players to boycott all they want, but the players are going to want to opt-in. This is just a few figureheads talking non-sense.

[CM Hooe]

I don’t see how the college players have much leverage to negotiate for a better deal, honestly.

We already know based on the NCAA Football series that a college football game will sell without 100% accurate player names, images, and likenesses.

We also already know sports games will sell if they are missing only prominent athletes but have a good cross section of the rest of their leagues. Lavar Arrington didn’t appear in a bunch of Madden games and he wasn’t missed. Barry Bonds was a longtime holdout from baseball games, if I recall correctly. Hell, Michael Jordan didn’t appear in any major NBA licensed basketball video game until he joined the Washington Wizards, well after the peak of his athletic powers, didn’t even have a generic stand-in in most cases, and they still did great; in particular, NBA JAM still became one of the most wildly popular and fondly remembered sports games of all time without him.

Maybe EA sweetens the pot for anyone who agrees to promote the game for them on social media, but I don’t see the baseline contract getting much better. The NIL rights of the rank and file college athlete just aren’t worth that much.

[kehlis]

Quote: Originally Posted by King Ken

You are thinking like a fanboy and not a businessman. NFL players getting 21k from 23. 500 dollars is BS. At least give me a percentage of royalties. That way if it only sells 1 mil, I'll get 150 dollars. If it sells 10 million, I'll get 1500. We know there is zero chance they are getting 21k but 500 dollars is garbage. That's a low end NIL deal for HBCU players, that's laughable for FBS players.

This is just silly.

We know not all things are created equal. There may be some players who have more sway than others but for a good majority of players in CFB, if they were to pushback in any way, EA would be happy to just leave them out. Wouldn't impact them at all.

Players will be happy to get anything to be in the game. Most former players have said they would have been happy to be in the game for free.


(Sorry - I see this has been covered. Responded before reading the rest)

[simbayless]

Mannnmn. If this game don't come out next year🤦

And 2k arcade football game still being push back by then
The football Gods just want us to play one football game still👎

[illwill10]

I agree about athletes not having leverage. The ****** fan probably doesn't even know about 85-90% of players names. Unless you're a fan of the team, I don't think a ****** fan would care if someone from like Idaho, Utah State, Ohio, or Texas State boycots and isn't included in the game.

I do think most players would happy just to be in the game. This would be the only chance for a high % of the players who won't go pro to be in a video game. Even for the big name guys, they already likely getting big NIL deals elsewhere anyway. Being in the CFB, it would only add more exposure to them, which will bring more NIL deals .

[jerwoods]

this will only affect Power 5 schools and out of those i think only 5-10 players might do it and it's going to be so small that u can put them in your dynese mode

[illwill10]

Quote: Originally Posted by jerwoods

this will only affect Power 5 schools and out of those i think only 5-10 players might do it and it's going to be so small that u can put them in your dynese mode

And for me, I usually sim the first two seasons of my dynasty while focusing solely on recruiting anyway, so i dont really care about none of the current players.