The NCAA is finally taking significant steps toward allowing athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness, and many fans have taken that to mean the return of a college football video game is on the horizon. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
The NCAA had a working group meet on Tuesday to discuss the possibility of allowing student-athletes to make money. The Board of Governors announced on Wednesday that the plan is to give student-athletes the green light to profit from marketing opportunities, social media, personal appearances, businesses they have started and the like, but group licensing will not be included. Bringing back a video game like EA Sports’ “NCAA Football” would require group licensing.
The bad news for those hoping the NCAA NIL report would lead to return of college sports video games. "The working group is also not recommending any changes to
NCAA rules to permit group licenses" such as needed for video games. But, the good news is… pic.twitter.com/VStTfvxsvG— Gabe Feldman (@SportsLawGuy) April 29, 2020
The working group left open the possibility of having some sort of group licensing in the future.
Per the working group's report, "The divisions should continue to explore whether it is possible to support institutionally managed group licenses for athletically related activities." So it's not out of the question there could be future NCAA video games. But it's not immiment.
— Dan Hope (@Dan_Hope) April 29, 2020
In short, we are not getting “NCAA Football” back in the immediate future — if at all. The game was extremely popular, and it has even been used by some schools as a recruiting tool. EA Sports would certainly love to bring it back, but the latest developments do not pave the way for that just yet.
