When EA Sports announced the return college football video games with EA Sports College Football, everyone who was a fan of the old NCAA Football series was excited. Finally, fans would have a new AAA college football game to enjoy with many of their favorite schools. Of course, the discussion then turned to when would the game’s release date be.
In its announcement of the game, the company said that it was at the beginning of the development process. That lead many to assume that it would be at least a year or two before we got our hands on the game. Well, according to Action Network’s Darren Rovell, it looks like we’re looking at the two year mark before the game releases.
Spoke to an insider today who says the target date for the EA College Football game is 2023.
A lot can happen with athletes rights between now and then.
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) February 3, 2021
Rovell put out a Tweet saying that an insider he spoke with said that EA Sports has a target year of 2023 for the launch of EA Sports College Football. With that time between the now and the game’s launch, the focus then shifts towards whether an agreement will be reached in time for players to be included in the game.
EA Sports’ Billion-dollar question
EA Sports hasn’t released a college football game in eight years due to lawsuits surrounding the unauthorized use of student-athlete likenesses. If EA Sports College Football is going to release in 2023, negotiations have to be taking place in order to get that implemented.
If no deal can be reached, you start to wonder if the game will even have the ability to update rosters. One of the biggest issues for EA can come from players being able to update a school’s roster to have an accurate look, thus circumventing any licensing issues. This was a major problem back in the early 2000s, and could rear its ugly head again if not handled right.
Doug Flutie’s Maximum Football 2020 handled this by allowing roster customization to be done, but not allowing them to be shared online. That could ultimately be the route that EA Sports decides to take with EA Sports College Football.
Whether or not the game will work something out to include real players is something worth keeping a close eye. No matter what, however, fans of College Football will still eat the game up no matter what the rosters look like come 2023.
What do you think about the EA Sports College Football release date and the issue of player likenesses? Let us know in the comment section below and stick with SGO for more as it becomes available.