According to new reports, EA’s rebirth of the NCAA College Football franchise will be released in 2023. EA announced earlier this year that college football would return to video games, but did not provide a specific timeline. If this report is accurate, it will be a decade since the latest instalment of the franchise, NCAA Football 2014, was released in 2013.
Since 1993, EA had released a College Football video game in some manner every year. The series was cancelled due to legal difficulties around the use of NCAA athletes’ likeness without compensation. NCAA restrictions forbade student-athletes from earning from their name, image, or likeness at the time. However, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the players being rewarded earlier this year, and it now appears that EA’s popular franchise could be back in just a few years.
Brandon Marcello, a national college football writer, tweeted that EA Sports plans to bring college football back to gaming in 2023. Cory Moss, the CEO of Collegiate Licensing Co., expects the series can be revived in the summer of that year, according to Marcello. Fans reacted positively to the tweet revealing this information, with many expressing their faith that the current production team will be able to achieve the high standards set by previous episodes a decade ago.
EA Sports games usually come out right before the start of the next season of whatever sport they’re imitating, so a summer 2023 release date would most likely cover the 2023-2024 college football season. It’s unclear how programmes and athletes will be compensated for allowing their image and likeness to be utilised at this time. The University of Notre Dame has said that it will not participate in EA Sport’s new game until clear guidelines surrounding athlete compensation are created.
Given that EA already has a comparable continuous model with its Madden series, as well as the history of its NCAA Football titles, it appears that the game’s development isn’t the issue. Over the course of 2022, there will almost certainly be a lot of legal debate over how institutions will play in this game. Individual schools appear to have more control over how they are represented than their professional counterparts. However, EA is adamant about bringing NCAA College Football back, and the coming year will undoubtedly be filled with tough talks.
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