Playtests for College Football 27 are seemingly underway with EA planning to reveal this year's game in early June. While many who have playtested College Football 27 are likely under NDA, one user did take to social media to leak some new features.
Revealed in a now-deleted post on Reddit, College Football 27 is said to include many Dynasty mode features that the community has asked for, including a NIL system that better reflects the current college football landscape.
NIL, which stands for Name, Image, and Likeness, refers to college athletes being allowed to make money from things like sponsorships and endorsements, autograph signings and merchandise sales, brand partnerships, social media, and more. For decades, college athletes were prohibited from earning money, but with the new NIL rules going into effect in 2021, players could now profit from their personal brand.
It completely changed the college sports landscape, allowing star players to make millions while still being considered amateur athletes. Now we see top college football players earning millions of dollars annually through NIL agreements. For the past two years, EA has refrained from incorporating NIL into its College Football games, but it appears that will change this year.
According to the leak, the NIL system in College Football 27 will operate outside of recruiting points, giving you another path to help sway recruits to your school. The post doesn't go into detail, but notes that higher caliber prospects, such as four and five star recruits, will "almost always certainly require some NIL." Prospects who are three star and below may still require some NIL money, but probably not as much. While recruiting points will obviously still matter, investing NIL dollars into a recruit will "skyrocket" their interest usually.
If true, this would be a major shake-up to recruiting in Dynasty mode in College Football 27, which has always felt a bit flat since the series was brought back two years ago. Up until now, all recruiting was simply a matter of investing "time" into a player to uncover their motivation and better tailor your pitch. Aside from discovering their motivations and investing the max allotted time into them, there really wasn't much else you could do to convince a recruit. Now, with the introduction of NIL, you'll be able to shell out money.
Assuming this feature is true, this will be a major advantage to larger schools playing in conferences like the SEC and Big 10. The blue chip programs in these larger conferences will presumably have more NIL money to spend on recruits. If you plan on building a smaller program, it sounds like things will be much harder this year.
Not everyone is a fan of NIL in college sports, but its the reality of the current system. Adding it to College Football 27 will be a huge boost to realism, and will add another layer of strategy when trying to recruit. It will make life at smaller programs more difficult, no doubt, but now you may even be able to sway a five star recruit by dumping all your NIL funds into them.
Keep in mind, this hasn't been confirmed yet and EA has not yet revealed College Football 27. This year's game is expected to be officially announced in early June.