EA College Football 25 tiered every program in the country to determine payment

The entire college football world is waiting for the first new video game release in more than a decade. We now know that EA College Football 25 will be released on July 19, just under two months away. But we're also finding out more details about the game and some of the inner-workings by the day.

Cllct Media collected a report on the payments that EA Sports sent to various colleges and universities for their participation in the game. The developer tiered the schools into four categories with payments ranging from just shy of $100,000 to under $10,000.

The tiers were constructed using AP Top 25 finishes from the past 10 years and the results are quite fascinating, as provided by On3.

Only 13 teams qualified for the Tier 1, which comes with an exact payment of $99,875.16 to each school. The three lower tiers are more heavily populated but there are certainly plenty of surprises in each of them.

Having said that, this payment to schools from EA Sports is nothing new. The developer previously paid them for using their name, image and likeness but the student-athletes were not paid. But the game's production came to a halt after a lawsuit from former UCLA player Ed O'Bannon filed an anti-trust lawsuit as the game and EA used his likeness without his consent or without paying him.

But back to this game, it's worth diving at least slightly deeper into the tiers that were revealed for these payments.

Surprises for EA College Football 25 tiers for payment

Again, it's worth noting that the AP poll finishes were used to determine these tiers. Having said that, it's still strange to see programs such as Oklahoma State, Utah and Iowa in the top tier while USC, Florida State, Texas, Florida, Washington, Tennesseee, Auburn, Michigan State, Miami and many other huge brands were in Tier 2.

And if you want to get even deeper than that, you have to believe that proud historical fanbases like Nebraska are anything but happy to see the Cornhuskers in the bottom tier. But again, that speaks to the Huskers' lack of success in recent history.

With this game coming back into our lives (thankfully), this is something else we could and should look forward to every year. Seeing which programs have had the most recent success in relation to others is a fascinating exercise and really gives us a good idea of what the modern college football landscape has looked like.