EA has increased the amount of money that will pay athletes for accepting that their name, image and likeness (NIL) is used in its next university football game.
Before launching EA Sports College Football 25 last year, EA asked more than 11,000 university soccer players to choose their null included in the game list, with a guaranteed payment of $ 600.
According to The Athletic, the editor is now making a similar request for this year’s game, EA Sports College Football 26, but this time offers the players $ 1,500 for their null, an increase of 150% in last year’s offer.
The improved offer is certainly not due to the lack of interest of the players: the sports reports that last year more than 8,000 players chose in just a few days, with more than 14,000 players that eventually opt for and that more than 11,000 were finally used in the game.
The publication speculates that the rate may have increased due to the appearance of a new group called Pathway Sports & Entertainment, which has been obtaining the Nil Rights of Players video game for $ 1,500 in advance. It is claimed that around 1,000 players have already registered with this group.
However, an EA spokesman told the publication that his rate increase had nothing to do with Pathway’s actions, and instead was his way of recognizing athletes for the enormous success of the game last year.
According to reports, Pathway agreements with players are not exclusive during the first year, which means that they are theoretically free to sign with Pathway and also opt for university football 26 for a total of $ 3,000. However, this can change for future games, which leads to possible problems.
The EA subscription agreements with players are not exclusive either, and last the entire university career of a player instead of a season, with a period of exclusion every December.
As EA’s first University Soccer match in a decade, EA Sports College Football 25 reached a massive sales milestone in the United States, becoming the best -selling sports video game in the country based on sales of dollars, surpassing NBA 2K21.
In the past, university athletes were forbidden to be compensated for the use of their names, images or similarities under the rules of the NCAA, which means that the previous University Sports Games have had to pass without names of real players.
This changed in 2021 after the United States Supreme Court decided that the NCAA rules prevented the athletes from obtaining profits from their own names violated the federal antitrust law. As such, the race to ensure null rights is relatively new, with numerous companies competing for this new potentially lucrative market.
