EA Sports to revive college football video game

EA Sports will start making its highly popular college football video game again.

The game will be called “EA Sports College Football,” Daryl Holt, the company’s vice president, told ESPN on Tuesday. He said there is not yet a date for the debut other than it won’t be this year.

“As we look for the momentum that we’re building on in sports, it all starts with the passion of our fans and the opportunities of what they are interested in,” Holt told ESPN. “I don’t think a visit where I go outside wearing a piece of EA Sports branded apparel, that someone doesn’t go, ‘Hey, when is college football coming back?’”

Speculation about the game’s return began after the NCAA announced in late 2019 that it planned to allow players to profit from their likeness as early as this year.

The game, then called NCAA College Football, was discontinued in 2013 after conferences and universities backed out of deals that allowed the company to use logos but kept them from using player names.

A lawsuit challenging EA’s use of player likenesses, including jersey numbers and features that could easily be used to identify specific players, also contributed to the shutdown.

The NCAA has yet to make its new rules final, and state legislatures and Congress are also considering legislation to allow athletes to sell their images.

When the title returns, it could provide a path for EA to achieve its goal of a 1,000-employee workforce in Orlando by 2025.