In the years leading up to the game’s release, Holt would spark curiosity when he wore EA Sports gear in public or when people talked to him about his job. There was one man who approached him while he was eating a hot glazed doughnut at a Krispy Kreme and asked when EA Sports would relaunch the game. Since then, the inquiries have only increased, with people in the sports world and even politicians demanding more information.
“Recently, at a partnership meeting, someone brought up the college football title and wanted to ask me questions about their school and how they’re represented in the game,” Holt said. “I get detailed questions about the game itself that I couldn’t answer at the time, but I didn’t expect that at a partnership meeting we would start talking about another industry.”
EA Sports launched its college football series in 1993 with the release of “Bill Walsh College Football” for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. College Football USA followed for two years starting in 1995, and in 1997, the game was dubbed NCAA Football after the gaming company acquired the licensing rights to the NCAA name.
Over a period of 20 years, the game has developed a dedicated fan base.
Players engaged in recruiting battles for fictional five-star athletes and built powerhouse teams from small schools in the game’s dynasty mode. While rosters in professional sports titles such as the Madden NFL series featured athletes with the same names as those seen playing on Sundays, NCAA football offered no such luxury, as NCAA policy at the time prohibited players from earning money from their names, images, and likenesses (NILs).
Sure, Texas’ starting quarterback in “NCAA Football 06” looked a lot like Vince Young, but in-game his name was QB #10. Some players spent days researching school rosters and manually renaming players to create a more authentic experience. And beyond its cultural impact, the series was considered a commercial success, with its final edition, “NCAA Football 14,” selling an estimated 1.5 million copies.
I remember as a kid staying up until 3 a.m. watching NCAA football games.
Now that I’m an adult with a wife, two kids, a job, and other adult responsibilities… I stayed up until 4 a.m. playing College Football 25. #CollegeFootball25
— Garret Price (@DynastyPrice) July 16, 2024
Uncertainty in the real world
The game was suspended in 2013 after former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon filed a lawsuit in 2009 against the NCAA over its use of players’ images and likenesses without compensation. In 2014, a U.S. district judge ruled that the NCAA’s use of college athletes’ names, images, and likenesses without compensation violated antitrust law. In 2016, the Supreme Court denied requests for review of the case, and in 2021, the NCAA allowed athletes to benefit from the NIL.
“The context of the NIL, the legal results of the O’Bannon case and the indecisive nature of the case,” Holt said of the factors that influenced EA’s decision. “There was an aspect of the case that opened up a very broad debate that, even to this day, is not completely settled.”
“It wasn’t a lack of design ideas, it wasn’t a lack of sales, it wasn’t a lack of interest in the sport, the title or the game. It was largely this uncertainty in the real world of sports that created a minefield that we had to navigate.”
Christian McLeod joined EA Sports as a designer in 2011 and worked on the game’s final three editions before it was discontinued in 2013. He described the game’s shutdown as “heartbreaking” and a “huge blow” to a production team that included developers with more than a decade of experience with the title, some of whom came to EA specifically to work on NCAA football.
After the title’s demise, its developers dispersed. Some left for other studios or the defense industry. McLeod stayed on, focusing on Madden NFL and NBA Live.
In the years since, some employees have held out hope for the game’s return. Quietly, a small cohort has periodically updated designs and data related to the game, hoping it would return.
“There were 10 or 15 of us brainstorming ideas,” says McLeod, now director of production for EA Sports College Football. “We were kind of the bearers of hope, the bearers of all the old documents from that time.”
When Holt started working on football for EA Sports in 2018, he said college football was an opportunity for the developer. Since 2013, internal conversations around NCAA Football have focused on why they couldn’t make the game. Holt began rethinking his approach and entered 2019 thinking about how they could revive it.
It was around this time that interest began to pick up. Holt said he received more questions about the game’s return when he wore EA Sports gear in public. At the office, the questions were constant.
“At a town hall meeting, I would get asked a question. I would have meetings with different people and get asked that question. It was a constant thing,” he said. “They would even start to (tweak) the question a little bit and say, ‘Well, what title are you hoping to bring back?’”
In December 2019, Holt formally presented the title’s return to EA Sports president Cam Weber. With the company’s arrival in 2020, Holt began assembling the core production team and planning how it would approach schools and licensing partners. When the game’s return was announced in February 2021, “it wasn’t all set yet, but we had different ideas.”
About two years earlier, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that would allow student-athletes in the state to accept compensation for the use of their name, image, and likeness. Similar legislation was subsequently introduced in other states, and in June 2021, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against the NCAA’s limits on educational benefits for college athletes. Holt credits EA Sports’ announcement of the game’s return with helping to advance the debate over compensation for college athletes.
“I think we opened up the discussion a little bit because people started using the game as an example and, in some cases, as a primary example,” he said. “We were already building a team to develop the game without NIL, but we still had a certain level of hope and confidence that the problem would be solved while we were developing the game.”
EA sent NIL offers worth $600 each to more than 11,000 Football Bowl Subdivision athletes to compensate them for the use of their likeness in the new game (those who agreed to participate also received a copy of the game). The company expected about 8,000 people to sign up, but more than 14,800 athletes agreed to participate in the four months following those offers, according to Holt.
A long-awaited return
Fans and players were excited to hear the game was coming back. College players were eager to see each other play. That excitement also spawned a small group of journalists who provided incremental updates on the game as it neared its release.
Matt Brown stumbled upon the beat by accident.
In late 2020, Brown, who runs the Extra Points newsletter, heard rumors of the game’s return before it was officially announced. He was working on a story about colleges looking to license and create their own beer and filed access to records requests to collect correspondence between the schools and a licensing company that works with the NCAA.
He said a Bowling Green-related request yielded a wealth of documents, including some related to licensing fees. There was also a five-page memo that said “highly confidential” at the top. It was EA Sports’ official project proposal for the game.
“As soon as I saw that, I was like, ‘Oh shit, this is way more interesting,'” Brown said.
Brown then went to work, writing an article outlining the game’s initial release date and sharing it on social media, which generated a lot of interest. Soon after, he created a system to learn more about the game by submitting applications to various schools.
“EA has to work with a lot of public institutions. Every time they ask people for stadium assets, uniforms or audio, there’s a paper trail,” he said, referring to the digital elements that go into creating a video game. “After four months and a handful of messages, I started to realize that there’s no level of information that’s too detailed, too intimate in baseball. People will respond to it because the appetite for any information about this game is just insatiable.”
Brown is no longer surprised by the level of interest from college football fans and players. What intrigues him is the level of interest from schools and administrators, who he said see the game as an opportunity to brand the game to younger generations and future prospects.
“They’re struggling to reach young fans and they recognize that being in a mainstream video game offers a huge marketing opportunity that they couldn’t otherwise fund,” Brown said. “(Football Championship Subdivision) schools aren’t in this game, but I’ve talked to at least a dozen executives who have said, ‘We’d do it for free.’ I think that’s especially true for HBCUs that recognize that this is a way to remind people what makes their culture and school environment special.”
Early Access players have been celebrating “College Football 25” since it became available to them earlier this week. Come Friday, there will certainly be plenty of fans participating in late-night marathons.
For Holt, the game’s release on Friday will be more cathartic than nostalgic. He’ll watch the game launch throughout the day, and when he gets home, he’ll take a deep breath and pour himself a glass of cabernet sauvignon to celebrate.
“I feel like I’m reaching the top of a mountain,” he said. “A mountain that I’m waiting to see the horizon of.”