Notre Dame won’t participate in new EA Sports College Football video game (for now)

The Notre Dame football team will not take part in EA Sports College Football unless their conditions are met.

With EA Sports College Football returning in the coming years, the Notre Dame football program will not participate in the video game at this time.

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick released a statement on his university’s decision to not take part in the highly anticipated video game.

“Notre Dame Athletics welcomes the return of EA Sports College Football, a video game series that has historically helped promote interest in college football. Notre Dame will not, however, participate in the game until such time as rules have been finalized governing the participation of our student-athletes.”

“As those rules are developed, it is our strong desire that student-athletes be allowed to benefit directly from allowing their name, image and performance history to be used in the game.”

You cannot have EA Sports College Football without Notre Dame

While no release date has been set for the video game, it will be awfully hard for the most popular college team to not be featured in it. Notre Dame has made the College Football Playoff twice in the last three years. Few programs have the widespread appeal of Notre Dame. They have to be in the video game if it is coming back.

Swarbrick made the right decision to hold out his university’s program from the game for the time being. They, and the rest of the FBS schools, need to figure out what is to become of name, image and likeness legislation before working with EA. While other programs have leverage here, perhaps Notre Dame carries the most as a massively popular national brand.

Why even bother making the video game if you can’t play as Notre Dame?

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