The anticipated College Football game from EA Sports may be delayed until 2024. The news comes from college football reporter Matt Brown who claims to be in touch with sources “familiar with the situation”. Matt Brown previously broke the story about the game’s announcement by following filings made by EA Sports.
For those unfamiliar with the situation, EA’s College Football game series has been in a strange state of limbo. A series of lawsuits in the 2010s put the company at odds with the NCAA. This resulted in EA being forced to pay out approximately $60 million USD; the NCAA alleged that their athletes weren’t being properly compensated for the use of their names and likenesses. This strained relationship leaves it unclear what if any role the NCAA will be playing in the upcoming title, EA’s social media refrains from naming the organization and only refers to the game as College Football (previous entries in the series were titled NCAA Football).
Even without the NCAA’s involvement, some colleges have directly made their thoughts known about whether they will continue to work EA Sports. The University of Notre Dame is one such school that will explicitly not be making a return in the upcoming college football game and others may follow suit.
EA Sport’s College Football was expected to be released in mid-2023 roughly in July; a release window which the company seems to be unable to meet. If Matt Brown’s sources are correct, EA will officially announce the game’s delay at 10AM ET on the morning of November 22.
Development updates from EA Sports have been rare ever since the game was announced. The official Twitter page for EA Sports College Football hasn’t been updated since the game was announced back in 2021. Matt Brown has been following the game’s development on his blog Extra Points and in a recent post he anticipated the game may take more time and effort than fans might believe. It’s easy to assume that EA could just take a Madden NFL game and slap a different coat of paint on it to get college football; that doesn’t appear to be the case.
Even if EA doesn’t make an announcement tomorrow, their lack of updates has left room for speculation to grow concerning the game’s development. Without any further word from EA, it might be safer to assume that EA Sports College Football will be coming out later, rather than sooner.
