Earlier this year, EA officially announced that EA College Football 26 was in development for release this summer. Last year, EA offered high-profile college football players $600 each for the right to use their names, images, and likenesses in EA College Football 25. But if a new sports representative company is successful, EA may have to pay a significantly higher amount to include those players in EA College Football 26.
As reported by Yahoo Sports, Pathway Sports and Entertainment is making aggressive inroads by pursuing the elite players in college football. The company has offered players $1,500 upfront for their NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) rights in addition to royalty pay that has yet to be fleshed out. Over 450 students at Alabama, Illinois, Georgia, Texas Tech, Wisconsin, and Oregon have already taken the deal, and Pathway has even grander ambitions.
Pathway is currently sending representatives to colleges across the nation with the desire to sign every football player who is on a scholarship program. There are approximately 11,000 players who have scholarships, and it would take more than $17 million to sign them all at the currently offered rate. However, the report suggests that the total payout may exceed $20 million when factoring in “ambassador payments” for certain students.
“The overall vision is for athletes to make more money than we saw in the first year of the video game,” said Pathway co-founder Casey Schwab in a statement. “We are creating mutual value here. This is a good thing for athletic directors, coaches, and schools because they are trying to create legit opportunities for their players. These are legitimate.”
EA doesn’t have any involvement with Pathway at this point. But if Pathway can sign up all or most of the athletes that EA wants to get for EA College Football 26, then the video game publisher will either have to agree to a new deal or go without the star players who helped make the franchise into one of EA Sports’ top-sellers.
