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EA Sports is bringing back its college football franchise with a limited number of schools participating, and Notre Dame won’t be among them. The university–a prestigious Catholic school with a celebrated football program–has confirmed it won’t participate.
In a statement, Notre Dame vice president Jack Swarbrick and athletics director James E. Rohr said the school won’t agree to participate in EA Sports College Football until better decisions come down regarding its student-athletes.
“Notre Dame Athletics welcomes the return of EA Sports College Football, a video game series that has historically helped promote interest in college football,” the statement said (via GI.biz). “Notre Dame will not, however, participate in the game until such time as rules have been finalized governing the participation of our student-athletes.”
The joint statement went on to say that Notre Dame hopes for a future where its student-athletes can “benefit directly” from having their likenesses appear in a video game.
“As those rules are developed, it is our strong desire that student-athletes be allowed to benefit directly from allowing their name, image and performance history to be used in the game,” the statement says.
Not having Notre Dame is a big loss, as it’s one of the most well-known and successful college football institutions ever. The school has won nine national championships over the years, and it was also the subject of the 1993 movie Rudy starring Sean Astin.
EA Sports has confirmed that the new college football game will not have any player names or likenesses. Instead, EA has worked out a deal with the Collegiate Licensing Company to feature more than 100 teams in the game, and their logos, stadiums, uniforms, and gameday traditions will be replicated in the game.
The NCAA is not involved in EA’s new college football game due to ongoing lawsuits and other legal matters regarding player likenesses in video games and compensation.
EA has not yet announced the list of 100+ teams that will be in its new college football game. It’s early days for the game, as development is only just getting started.
The latest NCAA Football game was 2013’s NCAA Football 14. A sequel was in development, but was canceled in September 2013 amid EA’s lawsuit settlement with former collegiate players.
EA’s contract with the NCAA for college football games was also terminated that year. Though EA later signed a deal with the Collegiate Licensing Company for more college football games, per the terms of the agreement, no future EA college football games can use the NCAA’s name or associated marks.
