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Bigger payout for players in upcoming College Football title (Photograph: EA)
While Electronic Arts missed its mark with Dragon Age: The Veilguard, College Football saw a triumphant return to become the best-selling sports game in US history which revealing its popularity among gamers. Popular enough to spawn a sequel and bigger payout to all student-athletes making an appearance in the upcoming EA Sports College Football 26.
As revealed by The Athletic, EA Sports is paying $1,500 to all athletes appearing in College Football 26. This amount is more than double the pay from last year where the payout was only $600 along with a copy of the game. On top of the new amount, there are talks ongoing about royalties.
Over 11,000 players made an appearance last year in College Football 25 and despite the bigger payout, the number will remain the same. Previous years’ spending reached $6 million in a payout of players’ Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL), and as per an EA spokesperson, the company will spend over $16.5 million for College Football 26. The company said they want to make the athletes feel recognized for the success of the game.
Also Read:EA Sports College Football 25 becomes bestseller across the US
EA Sports franchise remains popular among gamers
College Football 25 was an incredible achievement for the game company, however, the sports game usually sees a lot of success, despite multiple complaints throughout each year’s release. A recent list of Steam top-selling games saw EA SPORTS FC 24 and 25 in the Gold category among some popular names like Path of Exile 2 and DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO.
As of now, College Football 26 is currently under development and will release sometime in July this year. Any official information on the game is yet to come, however, there is already a cover art floating around for the game along with a teaser statement from EA Sports executive Daryl Holt.
“We've got a lot of things still to come. We release a game, we understand what's important to players and what they play, and what they would like changed, improved, or added. This is a game for fans built by college fans ourselves, and we want it to be that type of relationship to understand what's important to them,” Holt said.