Three Reasons Why the EA Sports Video Game Deal is Bad for College Football Players
Every Past, Present and Future College Football Player Should Boycott the Deal
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In January, I published a newsletter where I talked about the potential for group licensing deals for college football players. At that time, the CFBPA Leadership Committee added a seventh plank to the CFBPA Platform for Change which addressed this issue. The plank called for “competitive group NIL deals for college football players nationwide, facilitated by the CFBPA.”
Such deals—for things like jerseys, merchandise or video games—are the most useful in that thousands of players can be pooled together to make everyone passive income. Such deals are common in sports and are usually facilitated by players associations acting on behalf of their player members. So, in February, we added our seventh platform plank to begin educating players about group licensing deals and also to work at becoming the entity which would hopefully facilitate such deals in the future. Simply put, the more members we add, the easier it becomes to facilitate lucrative group licensing deals for our members.
Until then, players will continue to see bad group licensing deals announced in their name. Such was the case recently when EA Sports announced their group licensing deal for Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) players to appear in the 2024 college football video game.
The game’s release is arguably the most anticipated sports video game release ever given that the last college football video game, NCAA Football ’14, was discontinued after lawsuits over the use of players’ name, image and likeness in the game. Given this, gamers and college football fans uncritically celebrated the announcement. However, the announced deal is shockingly bad for the players and in the end gamers and fans may end up being disappointed if players choose to boycott appearing in the game. This On3 Sports article from yesterday suggests that many players are are contemplating just such a move.
There are three reasons players should boycott the deal: its compensation structure is bad; it was negotiated on behalf of players by a company which does not represent them; and it pits star players against those who are less well-known. Let’s break down all three of these:
Details on the financial parameters of the deal are still murky, but Pete Nakos at On3 Sports reports that all FBS players can choose to opt into the game with their name, image and likeness for a one-time payment of just $500 each. Given that EA’s Madden NFL video game regularly grosses over $700 million annually, I think we can expect the college football game to gross this much if not more given the game’s anticipation. For appearing in Madden, a current NFL player told the CFBPA that he received $28,000 for his last payment which included residual royalties from game sales. Even if you think college football players don’t deserve this much—and this is likely the case given that there are roughly six times as many FBS players as there are NFL players—the $500 figure is obviously absurdly low. Hell, the settlement for the lawsuit over NCAA Football ‘14 paid 29,000 players an average of $1,200 each with some making as much as $7,200. Why, then, are players getting so much less nearly a decade later? Finally, Sportico reports that this deal “might be the first major group licensing product deal, including jerseys and trading cards, among American athletes that doesn’t include royalties as part of compensation.” A measly one-time payment with no royalties for sales: this is precisely the kind of bad deal players will continue to see as long as they continue to not have real representation in the room for deals like this.
According to reports, EA Sports has given the rights to facilitate the group licensing deal for the game to a company called OneTeam Partners. In effect, this made OneTeam the sole negotiator for college football players in this deal. This was done despite the fact that OneTeam represents zero college football players and despite the fact that OneTeam had already stuck college football players with a bad deal on jersey sales. Given this history and standing, what gives them the right to be effectively negotiating on behalf of the players? OneTeam is a business entity which was created by the NFLPA and MLBPA to facilitate group licensing arrangements for those unions. The fact that OneTeam was given a monopoly over this deal is deeply concerning and questions need to be asked as to why this occurred. In particular, was OneTeam was given this monopoly by EA Sports in order to continue securing group licensing rights to the Madden video game? Also, will OneTeam once again take a 30 percent cut of each athlete’s compensation as they did with the jersey sale deal? If the answer to the second question is “yes,” then each player would be left with a measly $350 each if they opt in to the deal.
A deal like this is designed to pit star players against non-star players—the exact opposite of what you would expect from a good group licensing arrangement. Good arrangements—like the kind OneTeam negotiates for NFLPA members for the EA Madden NFL game—try to gain the most money for all players across the board. Crappy deals like this one do the opposite. This is why there is already speculation that star players might try to hold out for separate, more lucrative, deals while non-stars might be happy with the small one-time payment. If players had actual representation in the room a deal like this would have never been agreed to. Instead, the power of the collective would have worked together to ensure that all players received what they are worth as a collective unit. Individual NIL deals are great, but collective group licensing deals—where all players are paid the same—are where the real money and power are.
For these three reasons, players should boycott this opt-in deal. You’re not “kids” who should just be happy to be in a video game. You’re hard-working young adults who generate billions and billions and billions of dollars every year for conferences, colleges and corporations. The real game and the video game happen because of your labors and your sacrifices. You deserve just compensation for both and I urge you to join the CFBPA today to make sure bad deals like this don’t happen in the future.