Just a few months over three years ago, fans of college football received the biggest news. EA Sports revealed the company would be picking up its college football IP again, but under a new name, EA Sports College Football. Since then, numerous stories broke indicating EA was closing in on overcoming one of the biggest obstacles to the game’s authenticity, player likeness. However, despite EA and OneTeam coming to an agreement allowing FBS players to opt-in on having their names and player likeness included in the game, it seems a new setback has come amid the deal.
CFB Players Association urges player boycott of EA Sports College Football
At the time of the initial reporting of the EA-OneTeam deal, how everything would work was still being discussed. However, we now have some additional details on the deal as well as the issues it now brings. According to a report over at on3, the agreement between the two entities includes a cash pool rather than payment on an individual basis. Additionally, there appear to be no royalties included for players. And while the cash pool is said to be $5 million, this would be about $500 per player.
Vice President of the College Football Players Association, Justin Falcinelli, took exception to the deal noting it does not begin to compare to the $28,000 reported given to a player included in the latest Madden NFL.
“All current players should boycott this deal. It is an opt-in deal, and they should not opt into it. It is just a ridiculously low amount of money,” says Falcinelli, “You should not participate in this. It is a simple cash grab to just try to get you for the lowest amount possible. And it’s OneTeam Partners and all these organizations that don’t really represent the players’ best interest.”
Exploitation is nothing new to video games or EA as a company, but it is good to see the CFPA taking a stand for its players where other organizations are not. It is important to note, they are not boycotting the idea of being included in the game nor the idea of EA Sports College Football as a whole. The idea is that should players be included, compensation needs to be appropriate.
Standing up against exploitation
In his report to on3, Falcinelli mentions being a gamer at heart and continues to play to this day. Understanding how these games work and how EA will maximize profits from microtransactions and continued purchases of the game, Falcinelli aims to make sure players are treated fairly. Due to the negotiations going through OneTeam Partners, athletes will not be given the opportunity to negotiate for a fair wage.
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