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EA Sports has announced that NCAA Football will be returning to the video game world, by way of a new game that will be released for next-generation consoles. The NCAA Football series is one of the most popular in the history of sports video games but was discontinued after the release of NCAA Football 14 in 2013. EA Sports has continued to make Madden NFL games throughout this span.
Why did EA Sports discontinue the NCAA Football series?
The NCAA Football series was extremely popular and very profitable for EA Sports, but not so much for the NCAA itself. Real schools, stadiums, and player likenesses were included in the game, but no names were added to the players to ensure that EA Sports did not have to compensate them for their appearance in the popular series.
With heated debates about compensation for college athletes, NCAA Football was sent to the chopping block on the grounds that it could open the NCAA up to lawsuits from players who argued that the governing body of college sports was profiting off of them while restricting their ability to profit off of themselves.
Now that the tide has shifted and more people seem to support compensation for student-athletes, the time is right to bring the popular series back. EA Sports has announced that they have worked out licensing deals with over 100 schools to feature them in games, although individual players will still not be depicted.
EA Sports has not revealed the possible release date for the next itenration of NCAA Football but the reaction online has been considerable. NCAA Football 14 never officially died down, with active communities on places like Reddit and Discord still going strong. A PC version of the game called College Football Revamped is available to download online, and the EA servers still support Online Dynasties, letting players compete against their friends for up to 100 seasons per created coach.
