EA is expected to reveal EA Sports College Football 24 this coming Monday.
As reported by 24/7 Sports, this announcement will coincide with College Football Playoff’s national championships, which will be held at 4: 30 PM PT, and will be broadcast over at ESPN.
OK, so some of you reading might already be asking, what is EA Sports College Football? Well, alongside the long established and ongoing Madden football game franchise licensed with the NFL, EA used to have an NCAA football game franchise. This franchise was originally named after college football coach legend Bill Walsh, until they got the NCAA license.
That series abruptly stopped in 2013, because of a lawsuit filed by collegiate athletes about using their likenesses in these games. EA did want to continue the franchise, and tried and failed to get licenses with the other gridiron collegiate football conferences, the SEC, Big Ten, and Pac-12.
Jumping to 2021, EA revealed that they would be reviving their college football franchise, using the EA Sports College Football name. They have a longstanding deal with the Collegiate Licensing Company, that does not allow them to use the NCAA name, but does allow them to use the names, uniforms, and stadiums of over 100 NCAA-affiliated sports teams.
That deal doesn’t cover all the NCAA teams, but EA is working on that too, as they brokered a separate deal for Notre Dame. It’s expected that all the colleges will want their teams to be added in and will make deals with EA to do so.
24/7 Sports adds to this that EA has made a deal with OneTeam Partners to properly license player names and likenesses of the college athletes. This is a complete turnaround from their words and actions of over a decade ago, and demonstrates how serious EA is about bringing this franchise back.
As for the game itself, EA is mum on details for now. 24/7 Sports claims they have at least confirmed Dynasty and Road to Glory modes are coming back, but this game will be a literal decade old leap.
As such, college football fans should expect an even more detailed and intricate representation of their favorite sport than they had last seen in NCAA 14. EA reportedly has put extra effort to give this new game the proper college football atmosphere, differentiating it from its Madden NFL franchise.
Of course, Ultimate Team is expected to return for this game too, but for the fans, that may be a price they are willing to pay.
