EA Sports College Football 25 will pay athletes $1,500 each for their image, a 150% hike from last year
Players will now get $1,500 instead of $600 for agreeing to have their name and likeness in the game
EA has increased the amount of money it will pay athletes for agreeing to have their name, image and likeness (NIL) used in its next College Football game.
Before it released EA Sports College Football 25 last year, EA asked more than 11,000 college football players to opt into having their NIL included in the game’s roster, with a guaranteed payout of $600.
According to The Athletic, the publisher is now making a similar request for this year’s game, EA Sports College Football 26, but this time it’s offering players $1,500 for their NIL, a 150% increase on last year’s offer.
The improved offer certainly isn’t due to a lack of interest from players: The Athletic reports that last year more than 8,000 players opted in within just a few days, with more than 14,000 players eventually opting in and more than 11,000 eventually being used in the game.
The publication speculates that the rate may have increased because of the appearance of a new group called Pathway Sports & Entertainment, which has been obtaining the video game NIL rights of players for $1,500 up front. It’s claimed that around 1,000 players have already signed up with this group.
However, an EA spokesperson told the publication that its rate increase had nothing to do with Pathway’s actions, and was instead its way of recognising the athletes for the enormous success of last year’s game.
Pathway’s agreements with players are reportedly non-exclusive for the first year, meaning they’re theoretically free to sign with Pathway and also opt into College Football 26 for a total of $3,000. However, this may change for future games, leading to potential issues.
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EA’s opt-in agreements with players are also non-exclusive, and last for a player’s entire college career instead of on a per-season basis, with an opt-out period every December.
As EA’s first college football game in a decade, EA Sports College Football 25 reached a massive sales milestone in the US, becoming the country’s best-selling sports video game ever based on dollar sales, overtaking NBA 2K21.
In the past, college athletes were prohibited from being compensated for the use of their names, images or likenesses under NCAA rules, meaning previous college sports games have had to go without real player names.
This changed in 2021 after the US Supreme Court decided that the NCAA’s rules stopping athletes from making a profit from their own names violated federal antitrust law. As such, the race to secure NIL rights is a relatively new one, with numerous companies competing for this potentially lucrative new market.
