EA Sports College Football 25 marked the long awaited return of Electronic Arts' college football video game series. Its launch was met with astounding success, attracting more than 2.8 million players. By November, of last year, it had become the best-selling sports video game in the United States of all time based on dollar sales.
For EA Sports College Football 25, EA paid each student athlete who agreed to have their name, image, and likeness in the game a one-time payment of $600. Each student athlete also received a free copy of the game. Overall, players received roughly 2% of the $500 million EA Sports College Football 25 generated in sales last year.
Now, a new company is looking to get student athletes a larger piece of the pie. Yahoo is reporting that Pathway Sports and Entertainment, a new company focused on monetizing student athlete NIL rights, is launching, and it could have major ramifications on the future of EA Sports College Football.
The company is reportedly looking to sign college athletes from around the country to what would be the single largest commercial deal in the industry's history. Players who opt into the agreement receive $1,500 in an upfront payment with additional royalty pay expected once the structure is finalized.
"The goal is to sign each scholarship football player at the 134 FBS schools," Yahoo reports. "That’s a total of about 11,000 players at a cost of more than $17 million in upfront payments, or about $125,000 per school."
So far, about 450 players at Alabama, Illinois, Georgia, Texas Tech, Wisconsin and Oregon have signed up for the deal with visits planned for other schools, including Clemson, West Virginia, Missouri and Tennessee. In the end, the commercial deal may eclipse $20 million total.
If enough players agree to the deal, it could give Pathway Sports and Entertainment incredible bargaining power when discussing NIL payments for EA Sports College Football 26. Pathway expects that athletes will make four times of what most received with last year's game.
“The overall vision is for athletes to make more money than we saw in the first year of the video game,” said NFLPA executive Casey Schwab, who is part of Pathway's three-member leadership team. “We are creating mutual value here. This is a good thing for athletic directors, coaches and schools because they are trying to create legit opportunities for their players. These are legitimate.”
Compensation through Pathway is considered "outside NIL" which could help schools generate more compenstation for student athletes above the NCAA's recently introduced revenue-share cap. Payments made to athletes are recurring annually so long as the players remain in the Pathway program. Pathway also has the first option to license NIL deals for players who advance to professional football in connection with any professional sports video game, such as EA's Madden NFL.
Both EA Sports College Football and Madden NFL are incredibly successful franchises for Electronic Arts. The two games general hundreds of millions of annual revenue for the publisher who may soon have to plan for additional NIL spending if enough student athletes sign up for the Pathway program.
EA Sports College Football 26 is already in development with EA confirming a summer release this year.