For its EA Sports College Football 25 video game, EA Sports will offer Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals worth $600 to more than 11,000 athletes. This initiative marks the largest NIL deal to date, covering all 85 scholarship players across 134 FBS programs. The logistics will be managed through Learfield’s Compass App, with OneTeam Partners facilitating discussions with the athletes.
This strategy emphasizes individual contracts rather than a collective licensing agreement. Clearly this is a big deal, but is $600 per athlete fair?
To sweeten the deal, EA Sports is introducing “ambassador” contracts, incentivizing players to promote the game on their social media platforms. This approach will not only benefit the athletes financially, but it will also leverage their influence to enhance the game’s visibility and appeal.
EA stock is up 27.4% over the last year, so the company is doing a lot of things right. This new approach to athlete compensation (and promotion) feels like it’s on the right track. We’ll get the full details in May. In the meantime, it will be interesting to see if generative AI platforms have any impact on the demand for games from big gaming.
Author’s note: This is not a sponsored post. I am the author of this article and it expresses my own opinions. I am not, nor is my company, receiving compensation for it. This work was created with the assistance of various generative AI models.