EA Sports College Football Will Have Official Player Likenesses

EA Sports is set to finally bring back its college football series next summer after several years on the sidelines, and this time they’re going to do so with official player likenesses. In the past, EA had to use unofficial rosters due to various rules about using amateur players, which eventually led to EA putting a pause on the franchise. However, with the new Name, Image, and Likeness rules in college sports, players can now be paid by companies wanting to use them in various ways. To that end, EA Sports College Football has partnered with OneTeam Partners to get the ball rolling and ensure that fans will be able to hop into the shoes of their favorite players when the game launches.

As originally reported by ESPN, this partnership with OneTeam has already bared fruit. Following the announcement of the agreement, ESPN heard from officials at Wisconsin, Northwestern, TCU, Fresno State, and Tulane that they have opted into the program. We expect many other schools to follow as EA Sports and OneTeam have committed to giving every eligible FBS player the opportunity to opt in. Importantly, the “revenue will be divided equally among the athletes,” meaning that every player will get a cut of the pie regardless of how popular they may be.

View on X

If a player doesn’t want to be included, EA Sports College Football will replace them with a generic avatar and player. Essentially, it’ll be similar to the old games, though with players waving the right to be in the game, they likely won’t have as much of a legal leg to stand on as players did before the franchise paused development after the 2013 season. All in all, it certainly seems that EA has this all buttoned up in a way that should be beneficial to both itself and the players.

One thing that will be intriguing to watch is how many players get full facial scans into the game. We’ve seen EA do that for many of its sports titles, but with the sheer number of college athletes, it’s going to be a very tall task to get them all in on time. Plus, with how quickly they move on to either the professional leagues or graduation, it’s going to be a race against time each and every season. Regardless, EA’s college football games were often better than Madden back when they were both churning out releases, so we’re excited to see what the team can do with this return.