With this we could even get an NCAA Football with names and likenesses....just each player would have to sign on that they can use their individual likeness and then EA could even compensate them for it. But without a players union, I'd assume they'd have to get that from every player individually. /not-a-lawyer
We’re getting closer to an Olympic model of amateurism, where schools don’t pay salaries but players can earn money from third party sources.
this basically means stuff like NCAA Football and other top-down image licensing is likely. At this stage of the game they’re trying to split the gap between collectivized licensing through the NCAA and full on individualized player-to-sponsor contracting.
The interesting issue here is that the NCAA largely won on antitrust issues under the model where no one gets paid because they are all amateurs. If they start to get paid, even by third parties, antitrust can break very differently. The NCAA has lost on the ability to regulate coaching salaries or television payouts to schools. Once there is legitimate economic activity, there isn’t much the NCAA can do to prohibit it. The NFL and other leagues deal with the video game licensing and player jersey royalty issues through their collective bargaining agreement. Antitrust law has an exception for labor collective bargaining agreements, but there are no unions here.
Most if not all NCAA schools are under an apparel deal, many of them worth bazillions of dollars to the school. Alabama can’t have Tua out there signed personally to UA or some shit like that.
Pro sports have a CBA that has that ability to wear any shoe or gloves written in. Maybe that happens in college at some point, but I’d imagine it to be a tough thing to accomplish unless the school manages to get their cut of that revenue.
The school’s own their trademarks, etc so players and apparel companies can’t use them without consent. Bret Farve can earn whatever he wants from Wrangler jeans, but he can’t put a Packers logo on them. When EA sports pulled NCAA 2014 the Collegiate Licensing Company had a deal hammered out with its member schools to escrow royalties and pay them later, but the conferences stepped in and told CLC schools not to do it. If Joe Burrow refuses to license his image, right now, it can’t be used. A historical example is the 1980 Topps football set. The collective bargaining agreement at the time didn’t address this issue. Earl Campbell refused to allow them to use his image. He doesn’t have an individual card and doesn’t appear on any team leader cards.
This is probably unrelated but something I have always wondered. How is it that Bill Belichik can opt out of Madden every year when no other coach/player can?
I feel like a 1 year development cycle could get us a very good game right now. They have the Madden engine, the assets for fight songs, logos, uniforms, and stadiums for like 120 of the 130 schools in D1 FBS, and a working architecture for dynasty mode that should, at the very least, match the bar from NCAA 2014. They’d need to scout out the schools that have been added since, realign the conferences, add in the CFP, make some big changes to the recruiting/transfer portal system, implement a better online dynasty, and lower FSU’s QB1’s awareness to about a 3.
My guess is that he is a management employee who isn’t covered by the collective bargaining agreement and he’s the only coach who is a big enough asshole to care.
NCAA’s release may have been worded carefully but not sure how much they’ll realistically be able to push back against what seems inevitable.
Barry Bonds was also not in video games later on. I can't remember how that was ok unless similarly he was able to opt out of the MLBPA entirely
They could release the old game in 2 weeks with updated rosters and online dynasty and it'd sell 10 million copies
This happened a number of times with players who had their own games and couldn't appear in another around the same time(Junior, Jordan, Bonds, etc)
Did/does EA have an exclusive right to NCAA games? I know they do with the NFL but I thought college athletics was fair game provided the legality was settled.
Kevin Miller was a scab during the strike so he wasn’t allowed in the players union so he couldn’t be in games.
according to a couple of Video game boards and articles it doesn’t seem like EA retained exclusive rights. So you could see multiple developers create a game. I would assume EA would be quickest to market s
Probably spending all of their time figuring out how to put in physics based tackling so you can really feel the hits in a new game.
the assumption that 2k would come in and make a better game today is still such a funny dynamic to me. People forget that Madden 2005 was also awesome.
I play 2k20 a TON but I can admit the game needs a lot of work. The servers more than anything. Everything online has latency. Not really lag, just 1/10th of a second delay in moving. NCAA2012 had better online gameplay than 2k20.