"Brutal payout structure": Fans go wild over new College Football 26 update as official release inches closer

EA Sports College Football 26, releasing in July, comes with a bizarre system to compensate schools for using their name in the game. As per Cllct’s Matt Liberman, the school will receive compensation based on how frequently users play with the team.

It is a shift from last year, when schools were divided into four tiers based on their previous 10 years of final AP poll results to determine revenue distribution. But from now on, schools will be paid based on game usage.

Fans had wild reactions to this development.

"Brutal payout structure lol," one fan commented.

For smaller programs like Kent State, it became meme material almost instantly. One viral comment read:

“Kent State to receive $50 dollars.”

Meanwhile, other fans saw an opportunity to turn their love of the game into grassroots fundraising. One user joked:

“I will be generating a massive new NIL fund for @CanesFootball.”

Another fan saw it as a chance for the top dogs to eat even more:

“Dawgs about to get so rich.”

One fan said:

“I’ll play it so much if it lowers my ticket prices.”

For others, it was a sobering dose of reality for their favorite teams:

One fan lamented:

“Virginia Tech just going to be in the game and get nothing.”

Another added:

“Kentucky is somehow gonna lose money on this”

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EA Sports College Football 26's revenue distribution system

To understand how much a particular school will earn based on usage in College Football 26, On3 explained the scenario in their update:

"If users play 7 million games as School A, the school’s allocation would be 1%. Therefore, School A would receive $50,000."

In documents obtained, there is further clarity on how the new revenue distribution model will work.

“For each CFB product released by EA SPORTS, we (CLC Learfield) will provide a percentage for each institution based on the games played for that institution as a percentage of the total games played across all institutions,” a document says via On3.

“This percentage of games played will become the final allocation percentage for each school that will be applied to the total gross royalties for all institutions received."

The EA Sports College Football 26 will build on the success of the 2025 edition released last year, which brought over $400 million in sales and 6.5 million unique players to date.

Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith and Alabama’s Ryan Williams are featured on the cover of the EA College Football 26 standard edition. The trailer of the upcoming game was released on May 29, and it has received positive reviews.