The NCAA is starting the process to allow players to profit off their name and likeness, meaning a popular video game series could make a return.
The NCAA dropped a statement on Tuesday that seemed to break down the doors for collegiate athletes to profit off their name and likeness. In their impromptu announcement, the NCAA stated that their governing board voted to “unanimously to permit students participating in athletics the opportunity to benefit from the use of their name, image and likeness in a manner consistent with the collegiate model.”
The news seemed big, especially coming off of the news earlier this month of California passing a law giving college athletes the opportunity to profit off their name and likeness — which the NCAA doesn’t allow them to do — in their state.
Given more reading, however, the statement merely opens the door for the organization to one day allow their players to be paid for their likeness, putting forth a working group to start devising plans between their three divisions — DI, DII, DIII — to come up with a plan by January 2021.
Though not as immediately impactful as some were hoping the statement would be, the NCAA starting the process to allow players to profit off their name, image and likeness has many wondering if the popular football video game will be making a comeback as well.
The NCAA football games were a series of sports video games, published by EA Sports, that ran 20 years from 1993 to 2013, ending with the final game NCAA Football 14. The series featured many large universities over the years, but ultimately ended due to the NCAA terminating their agreement with EA after universities pulled out of the agreement.
The games have reached a cult status in the sports world, thanks to being fun games in their own rights despite not allowing to have famous college players named due to the organization’s rule against players being paid for their likeness. The last game, NCAA Football 14, featured Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson on the cover and was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 at the time in 2013.
The NFL Players Association recently partnered with the National College Players Association, possibly giving the games an avenue back should things break right over the next few years.
It will likely be a long time before we see the return of the NCAA football games to modern consoles, but if social media is any indication, it’s an exciting prospect that got just a little bit closer to becoming reality with this latest news.