It’s been over ten years since the last NCAA Football game, so there was understandable excitement when EA Sports announced that it was actively developing EA Sports College Football for new-gen consoles, like the PS5. However, the tricky tightrope of player likenesses continues to prove a sticking point, as the College Football Players Association is now in the process of arranging a boycott over the game in protest of low pay.
Obviously up until recently, college players who featured in EA Sports’ series went unpaid, due to rules around athletes receiving compensation. But new laws have reversed those rules, and athletes are now eligible to be paid for having their likenesses featured in the game. The publisher has allegedly earmarked $5 million to compensate players, but with approximately 10,000 stars to include, that works out at around $500 each, with no promise of royalties.
As a result, Justin Falcinelli, the vice president of the College Football Players Association, believes the publisher is “exploiting” players. “All current players should boycott this deal,” he said. “It is just a ridiculously low amount of money.” According to Falcinelli, some professional NFL players receive as much as $28,000 to feature, but there are obviously a lot less players in the league overall to compensate.
This is a really tricky situation for EA Sports, because obviously it needs to pay players properly, but a budget of $5 million already seems pretty significant for a game that’s unlikely to sell particularly well outside of North America. The publisher previously said that the “road’s open now” when it comes to the inclusion of player likenesses, but warned: “It’s still under construction.”
We suspect this story’s going to run and run.
[source on3.com, via gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 24
No! I am shocked! Who could imagine EA doing these kinds of business practices?
I can only imagine what they pay the ufc fighters. Maybe $100 each unless they're McGregor or a champion.
@BeerIsAwesome I don't really want to defend EA on this one, but also I dunno what people expect. If they give each player, say, $1,000 that's $10 million added to the budget before they even make the game.
I'm looking forward to College Football, but realistically how many copies is this going to sell?
if the college player has a sweet NIL deal then it doesn't matter.
eg arch manning gets 3.7 million NIL deal at texas
It's not like they are adding voice acting or anything to the game. All that's happening is their names being stuck on a jersey with character models somewhat resembling them. Plus like @get2sammyb said there are way less players to deal with in Madden. Plus those are professionals. These are college kids.
Don't get me wrong I'm happy college players get some sort of compensation these days but I think this pretty fair all things considered.
@get2sammyb You'd be surprised. College football is massive in America. By some metrics even bigger than the NFL. I am surprised they are actually paying them though, since college players usually aren't allowed to get "paid", though billionaire investors love to give the best players "gifts" of sports cars and stuff. Some of the facilities in college football are genuinely better than a good percentage of NFL teams.
Division I Athletics - $15.8 billion in revenue in 2019
EA Sports - $7.4 billion in revenue in 2022/23
This is chump change for these guys. The athletes deserve more than $500.
@nessisonett I’m not so sure. How much should the long snapper for the Lehigh Mountain Hawks earn for their likeness? Should players be payed differently based on the size of the school or their popularity? This seems like a bit of a can of worms, but to be fair, it’s a can of worms packed to bursting by the NCAA and the line they like to pretend exists between amateur and professional athletics.
@BeerIsAwesome No I know it's big and I think the game will sell well, but you'd have to sell a lot of copies to make up a $10 million licensing budget, and this doesn't have the global appeal that something like FIFA or even NBA 2K has.
I'm sure it'll sell well, but they've got to be realistic about it.
@get2sammyb then simply don't use their likeness. You shouldn't get to profit off people because you can't afford to pay them their asking price.
@BeerIsAwesome they are now allowed to be paid.
@nessisonett you're acting like Div1 actually pays the players, they pocket this money.
This guy makes a terrible argument. Comparing what "some" NFL players make "as much as" to what the average college player will get is silly. Basically comparing Patrick Mahomes to the backup safety at Boise State.
Seems like greed from the player's association to shake out every last dime. This despite that I'd guess 98% of players would just be happy they got to be featured in the game and would be thrilled with $500.
In my day we would have been thrilled just to be in the game and be able to play as ourselves and show our family and friends. That's not to say they shouldn't get paid too, but we need some perspective.
I think it makes sense to pay each player the same rather than splitting them. A $5 million kitty seems reasonable to me, perhaps they could dig a little deeper but if they ask for too much the game will disappear again (it's been absent for 10 years) and this was the cause of the cancellation last time.
nessisonett wrote:
How much is Division 1 Athletics paying them each then...
@Amnesiac @nessisonett Great point. I think the players should be happy with that because it isn't going to sell at all and only a small percentage of college players go to the NFL. Not all players are good or certain teams.
I should have thought the fairest thing would be royalty payments. If the game does gangbusters, everyone wins. If it flops, then everyone is left disappointed.
I'm not entirely sure what they mean by low pay?
They didn't get anything before hand so how can someone get low pay. Esp for college football.
They should just be greatful a game is being made around college football and they are getting a bit of money for it.
I'd feel better about it if EA offered something like, $5 million plus 10% of sales after the first $X million. That way if it's a bomb, EA doesn't lose money and they're more willing to do it again - but if it's a huge hit and does better than expected, they can chip in more to the players and colleges who will be a big part of why fans buy the game.
Also, comparing the income for "EA Sports" to the offer for name and likeness for this one game isn't really fair - you're lumping in revenue from pro football, basketball, hockey, soccer, golf...a whole lot of different fan bases, and using that number to say they can afford to lose money on this one game. They aren't making games to lose money on them.
Ridiculous. I knew this would blow up.
You can’t expect with all those players the same as nba or nfl players. £500 to feature in a video game that you are going be stoked to be in sounds ok to me.
The NCAA have no issue making money and not giving it to players….
Either don't use the players likeness or cut that list of players you use in the game way down. Problem solved and the game will still sell the same.
@themightyant I actually think that is the stance a majority of players actually will/do have. Plus, the kids that "deserve" more are already making pretty good NIL money. I follow D1 wrestling which is a sport that loses schools money and some of those kids clear 6 figures real easy. Big boy sports like football and basketball make a lot more.
Given that video games, even those based on or inspired by our world's history or concurrent events, remain interactive Fiction, I've honestly always found this whole "player likeness" somewhat overrated. Neat as an option when reasonably possible, but when it threatens to bloat the budget? I daresay it's more engaging to follow the journey of an original or avatar protagonist than to put yourself in extremely approximate and ultimately impactless shoes of some IRL sports star.
@Cjam36 can't upvote you enough. This sounds like greed to me. And if the did buget say 10 million for the game, you can guarantee the game would be at least 89 or 99 dollars for the standard edition. And that is the lower end of the spectrum. 500 dollars and the privilege of being in the game is more than enough
Vs $0 and no game?
I thought college kids were supposed to be intelligent. Oh but wait…dumb jocks
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