Why EA Sports needs to bring back NCAA Football

EA Sports hasn’t released a new college football game in over three years. Here’s why and how EA Sports can bring back the video game immediately.

It has been a while since EA Sports last released a NCAA College Football video game, three years to be exact. My reply to that is three years too long and why has this taken so long in the first place?

Here’s the thing that doesn’t make any sense, the NCAA literally thinks of everything. They’ve got a comprehensive, over a thousand pages long rule book on what you can and can’t do, if you’re interested in having some reading material you can find it here: NCAA Rule Book.

So why did they have a brain lapse in the creation of the NCAA Football video game that started back in 1993 as Bill Walsh College Football? Since then the game’s illustrious history spanned 20 plus years going through multiple different titles before retiring in July of 2013.

Couldn’t they have simply slapped “player likeness” into the contracts way back in the early 90s to prevent this issue from ever happening? Unfortunately, that oversight, which could’ve easily solved this issue, has derailed the video game from production.

Despite the fact, as highlighted in the video above, they’ve received the thumbs up to continue production. The CLC (collegiate licensing company) concurrently announced that it would extend its existing licensing deal with EA through 2017, ensuring that EA Sports could continue the series without the NCAA branding.

So why has the game been out of commission? Due to the money struggle between the NCAA and the players, who have seen their production and hard work literally turn into dollars for their respective school.

More from Saturday Blitz

• Michigan State vs. Maryland: Location, time, prediction, and more
• ACC Power Rankings: Can #4 FSU overthrow Clemson at Death Valley East?
• Most heartwarming social media reactions to Nick Chubb’s injury
• Ranking college football’s top 10 quarterbacks after Week 3
• Things are going to get much darker for the Houston Cougars

Which they’ve seen none of the fruits of their labor, in terms of a return on their investment. Which drags us into the argument that the players get a free college education and that should be enough.

While I agree that a college education should be the number one priority, let’s simplify the issue. The first step, bite the bullet and pay off the players that have legitimate claims from getting benefited off of.

Check that one off, the NCAA surprisingly reached a settlement in the EA video game lawsuit. Here’s the statement from the NCAA via their website on the settlement.

"“The settlement will award $20 million to certain Division I men’s basketball and Division I Bowl Subdivision football student-athletes who attended certain institutions during the years the games were sold.” Via the NCAA website"

Now step two, fix the problems of the past, which means the NCAA rewrites the books saying all collegiate players from here on out’s “player likeness” are the rightful intellectual property of the NCAA. Then you have the present and future set and you can start making the video games immediately.

This would be a fool-proof way of bringing the game back and avoiding the lawsuits that clearly EA Sports and the NCAA are scared of. Perhaps the even bigger story is that countless college football fans have been robbed of a unique video game experience that can’t be replicated.

More saturday blitz: Building the Best CFB Team of All Time

To sum up, this article simply, speaking on behalf of NCAA Football fans everywhere, we just want our game back. It’s not impossible to get it back, putting the politics and all the semantics aside this video game can be back on the market, why not in 2017.