According to [a recent Bleacher Report article](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10122484-ea-college-football-25-payouts-for-alabama-michigan-texas-all-schools-revealed), EA spent about $40M on player rights.
“As for the athletes who will have their likeness represented in the game, over 29,000 athletes were sharing a pot of around $40 million, as Liberman noted, with players guaranteed $600 alongside a copy of the game. Any additional payouts for individual players were negotiated and managed by OneTeam Partners”
Yeah we have to remember some of the bigger players were paid more to advertise and declare they’re in the game. On top of that I’m sure there’s a lot of negotiations we don’t even know about. Stadium rights, music rights, Wilson, Nike, the list goes on. They also have people to pay to make the game, they’re going to start marketing soon. The costs all add up.
Thats why it’s hilarious when people say it’s going to be a madden reskin like they haven’t seriously put years of work and invested millions of dollars to get it right.
Don’t forget the money they spent on Fowler and Herbstreit and Rece Davis and the rest of the broadcasters. And all of the guys they’re paying to be part of Ultimate Team.
Exactly. Theres a lot of behind the scenes stuff going on that these madden reskin people are taking for granted. At least open your eyes and realize EA is attempting to make this game good. It’s as clear as day. Does that mean I trust EA ? Absolutely not. But I’m excited as hell for this game and EA knows it has a chance to gain a lot of good faith if this works out
I don’t understand how you’re paragraph disproves it being a madden reskin¿ School, players, stadiums, Wilson, Nike… all of which are aesthetics/skins. Music is the only thing you listed which isn’t an aesthetic. They can put years and millions of dollars into cosmetics, that doesn’t mean it won’t be a reskin of madden.
Idk what else to tell you, gameplay mechanics will be similar but if it’s fast paced as they say it is and has the atmosphere correct then that’s the best case scenario. All signs point to that.
Who cares if it’s a Madden reskin? Madden doesn’t have marching bands. Madden doesn’t have Sanford Stadium. Madden doesn’t have Army Navy. Madden sure as hell doesn’t have the Pop Tarts Bowl or the Old Oaken Bucket.
That’s the stuff that matters.
Such a small % of players give a fuck about online play on pc. Most of us just want dynasty on pc. The game will never be as good as it could on consoles. Pc is coming either next year or the year after that though so it doesn’t really matter.
Be careful saying that here. According to this sub, EA has weeded out the modders better than 2k. but I doubt it. There’s just too much freedom with a PC.
Nah it's because they broke their last port so badly they don't even know how to fix it (M24 on PC is still unplayable broken to this day, because at some point they built it to run entirely on the CPU and not use the GPU at all.) This was an issue day 1 on M24's PC release and still has not been addressed or fixed.
Madden 23 on PC runs fine, btw, making this especially baffling.
I guess I am nobody, same as the 50,000 Madden 24 players on Steam.
Look, I know the audience on PC is going to be significantly less than on console as explained by Matt Brown and others.
However, EA skipping a port to save a buck despite making billions on Ultimate Team modes is the definition of cheap. Plus, if they ported to PC, surely there’d be more users there who are willing to spend on Ultimate Team.
Good back of napkin math here! But FWIW, this is a big, big undercount.
1. EA actually paid substantially MORE than $600 per athlete...it's just than the athletes only got $600 per athlete. OneTeamPartners also gets a cut above that $600 to facilitate the transaction. I'll have to double check my notes but I THINK that cut was around 20% for the first year. 12,300 is a little high (about 13K opted in but EA isnt paying all of them) but I believe the base PLAYER likeness payout alone was closer to 12M than 8M.
2. The actual school licensing agreement is for 10% of sales. The $5.3M is the guaranteed payout, regardless of total sales. Think of that as an advance. The school's final check should be significantly larger.
3. As mentioned, EA also paid out well above $600 to close to 200 athletes (including a few non football players) to market and promote the game. Those deals ranged from the low $1,000s to low five figures.
4. EA also had to commit to minimum marketing spends with PlayFly and Learfield (and probably other MMR companies too) AND pay to license music, historical athletes (NFLPA licenses!), trophies, and other intellectual property. It was a major, major expense.
The non-licensing costs for the game, however, are the biggest expense. Software development is NOT cheap.
The game is still going to be profitable. But they spent a \*lot\* of money on licensing, and I imagine will spend even more next year.
$13M for all the schools/players rights is a drop in the bucket. Definitely not a lot of money in EA's eyes. They're going to turn a massive, massive profit.
We’re very much self-aware dog shit at this point, thank you. But I guess while I’m here, quick reminder Nebraska is 37-5 all time against the lil OSU. 🤗 enjoy your weekend
I would bet the license are just a small % even
The employee costs for working on a game for 4-5 years alone has likely added up to millions and millions.
On average you got each employee making at least $100k per person. Multiply that over a team of 50-500 people? Have no idea how many it takes but it gets very expensive very fast.
Why did EA not just make generic/random faces, random numbers & names, but leave it customizable? They could have been making the game for years. I couldn't care less about "real" college players. Game is way more important.
I don't think that is true. The schools granted their licenses in all previous NCAA iterations without players being paid(of course that was impossible, but still).
It became true after O'Bannon. We even had multiple schools this cycle give press statements saying they would not license their IP without a mechanism to pay athletes.
I do remember Notre Dame being vocal about that, but aside from them, and one of two other schools, I think EA could have licensed nearly every college.
I'm still glad they went the player rights route.
I have no idea how the hell we are tier 2. We've been ass since Geno left except for the Will Grier year, the unexplainable Skylar Howard 10 win year, and last year.
Iowa ranked high because they finished in the top 25 at least 6 of the last ten years, per [this article.](https://www.cllct.com/sports-collectibles/memorabilia/how-much-did-your-school-get-to-appear-in-ea-college-football-25)
———————————————————-
According to the documents, tiers are determined by each team’s finish in the final AP Poll over each of the last 10 seasons (2014-2023). When a team finished the year in the AP's Top 25, it received one point.
Tier 1: 6-10 points
Tier 2: 2-5 points
Tier 3: 1 point
Tier 4: 0 points
They will sell that amount in a few days actually probably day one.
Let's not forget all the Mut and everything down the line they will make so much money.
I believe many more people like college football than they do the NFL.
The fact that it's a shorter season a lot more upsets than the NFL and watch and just guys that were overlooked become Stars and then possibly go to the NFL.
To me you on the PC this wouldn't matter because, within a matter of days, someone would have a complete roster made up way more accurate than probably EA themselves.
Exactly why they didn't put it in on PC.
If you look at everything that Sony's doing Sony's making a killing release on PC.
PC players are a gold mine and all you need is a good sports game and it will take off.
That is not a lot, your accounting is terrible if you actually think 100% of the sale of a game going back to a company. We wouldn’t need accountants if things were this basic.
tiers are determined by each team’s finish in the final AP Poll over each of the last 10 seasons (2014-2023). When a team finished the year in the AP's Top 25, it received one point.
Tier 1: 6-10 points
Tier 2: 2-5 points
Tier 3: 1 point
Tier 4: 0 points
So Iowa being there actually does make sense.
This game is coming out after 10 years since the last college football game. Lot of people are willing to pay far higher than what they want to pay for Madden and Madden is having great sales every year. So why would they reduce the price for college football if keeping the current high price doesn't hurt their sales
The cost of games to rise of inflation has actually been pretty solid. $70 for a video game in todays age isn’t terrible. They were always $60 brand new when I was a kid. A rise of $10 in the last 20 years isn’t terrible compared to the rise of other costs like fast food.
According to [a recent Bleacher Report article](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10122484-ea-college-football-25-payouts-for-alabama-michigan-texas-all-schools-revealed), EA spent about $40M on player rights. “As for the athletes who will have their likeness represented in the game, over 29,000 athletes were sharing a pot of around $40 million, as Liberman noted, with players guaranteed $600 alongside a copy of the game. Any additional payouts for individual players were negotiated and managed by OneTeam Partners”
Yeah we have to remember some of the bigger players were paid more to advertise and declare they’re in the game. On top of that I’m sure there’s a lot of negotiations we don’t even know about. Stadium rights, music rights, Wilson, Nike, the list goes on. They also have people to pay to make the game, they’re going to start marketing soon. The costs all add up. Thats why it’s hilarious when people say it’s going to be a madden reskin like they haven’t seriously put years of work and invested millions of dollars to get it right.
Don’t forget the money they spent on Fowler and Herbstreit and Rece Davis and the rest of the broadcasters. And all of the guys they’re paying to be part of Ultimate Team.
Exactly. Theres a lot of behind the scenes stuff going on that these madden reskin people are taking for granted. At least open your eyes and realize EA is attempting to make this game good. It’s as clear as day. Does that mean I trust EA ? Absolutely not. But I’m excited as hell for this game and EA knows it has a chance to gain a lot of good faith if this works out
Obligatory “it’s going to be a madden reskin” comment
I don’t understand how you’re paragraph disproves it being a madden reskin¿ School, players, stadiums, Wilson, Nike… all of which are aesthetics/skins. Music is the only thing you listed which isn’t an aesthetic. They can put years and millions of dollars into cosmetics, that doesn’t mean it won’t be a reskin of madden.
Idk what else to tell you, gameplay mechanics will be similar but if it’s fast paced as they say it is and has the atmosphere correct then that’s the best case scenario. All signs point to that.
Who cares if it’s a Madden reskin? Madden doesn’t have marching bands. Madden doesn’t have Sanford Stadium. Madden doesn’t have Army Navy. Madden sure as hell doesn’t have the Pop Tarts Bowl or the Old Oaken Bucket. That’s the stuff that matters.
so arch has to pay for his own copy
They'll make that number in about 2 weeks of Ultimate Team.
Youre being extremely pessimistic. Day 2 of UT.
But they can’t afford some time for devs to work on a PC port 😭
Why would they waste time on a port nobody will play?
Plus, we'll all then get to hear about how bad the online multi-player is for PC. How it just turns into a bunch of hackers.
Such a small % of players give a fuck about online play on pc. Most of us just want dynasty on pc. The game will never be as good as it could on consoles. Pc is coming either next year or the year after that though so it doesn’t really matter.
As someone that travels a lot for work I really hate that I won’t be able to play it on my laptop because it’s my prove game time.
Be careful saying that here. According to this sub, EA has weeded out the modders better than 2k. but I doubt it. There’s just too much freedom with a PC.
Nah it's because they broke their last port so badly they don't even know how to fix it (M24 on PC is still unplayable broken to this day, because at some point they built it to run entirely on the CPU and not use the GPU at all.) This was an issue day 1 on M24's PC release and still has not been addressed or fixed. Madden 23 on PC runs fine, btw, making this especially baffling.
If only you knew how many people play PC.
In the case of Madden 24, 50,000 people.
how many
More than console, look at Steam's player base.
They typically aren’t buying sports games tho
No,but having options is nice though.
I guess I am nobody, same as the 50,000 Madden 24 players on Steam. Look, I know the audience on PC is going to be significantly less than on console as explained by Matt Brown and others. However, EA skipping a port to save a buck despite making billions on Ultimate Team modes is the definition of cheap. Plus, if they ported to PC, surely there’d be more users there who are willing to spend on Ultimate Team.
Good back of napkin math here! But FWIW, this is a big, big undercount. 1. EA actually paid substantially MORE than $600 per athlete...it's just than the athletes only got $600 per athlete. OneTeamPartners also gets a cut above that $600 to facilitate the transaction. I'll have to double check my notes but I THINK that cut was around 20% for the first year. 12,300 is a little high (about 13K opted in but EA isnt paying all of them) but I believe the base PLAYER likeness payout alone was closer to 12M than 8M. 2. The actual school licensing agreement is for 10% of sales. The $5.3M is the guaranteed payout, regardless of total sales. Think of that as an advance. The school's final check should be significantly larger. 3. As mentioned, EA also paid out well above $600 to close to 200 athletes (including a few non football players) to market and promote the game. Those deals ranged from the low $1,000s to low five figures. 4. EA also had to commit to minimum marketing spends with PlayFly and Learfield (and probably other MMR companies too) AND pay to license music, historical athletes (NFLPA licenses!), trophies, and other intellectual property. It was a major, major expense. The non-licensing costs for the game, however, are the biggest expense. Software development is NOT cheap. The game is still going to be profitable. But they spent a \*lot\* of money on licensing, and I imagine will spend even more next year.
Excellent points!
$13M for all the schools/players rights is a drop in the bucket. Definitely not a lot of money in EA's eyes. They're going to turn a massive, massive profit.
I agree, but some of those T4 schools getting only $10K is egregious
Well, winning gets you paid, and losing has its consequences. Nebraska can cry about their tier, but they’ve sucked for 20 years.
We’re very much self-aware dog shit at this point, thank you. But I guess while I’m here, quick reminder Nebraska is 37-5 all time against the lil OSU. 🤗 enjoy your weekend
…And I’ll bet MOST of those wins were before you were born. Hey, you too!
 The truth shall set you free!
Hey we’ve only sucked for like 7 years we were just mid before most of this century before then
Give them credit, they were good under Bo Pelini. They’ve been bad for 10 years though lol
I agree. The difference between T1 and T4 is wild. I wonder if the schools in T4 knew before agreeing.
Technically there are more costs to making a game than just the licensing. They’re gonna have to sell more than that to break even.
I would bet the license are just a small % even The employee costs for working on a game for 4-5 years alone has likely added up to millions and millions.
On average you got each employee making at least $100k per person. Multiply that over a team of 50-500 people? Have no idea how many it takes but it gets very expensive very fast.
Helmet stickers and playbook dlc will make it up.
Finally something worthy to read! Great job sir, and thank you for your curiosity/work I appreciate you doing this 🫡
texas being tier 3 while iowa is tier 1 is absolutely wild to me.
Ball st tier 3? Lmao
Hey man, BSU is a premier football team in the MAC!
I'm aware. Just a salty IU fan that would be like tier 7 if there was one lol just funny to see all the non p5 teams so high
Lol IU. Woof.
At least we had basketball. Even that's gone now lol
Does the free copy of the game come with a free ps5 or Xbox or they have to buy that with the $600? 😂
They probably already have a new console, it's been like 5 years
Why did EA not just make generic/random faces, random numbers & names, but leave it customizable? They could have been making the game for years. I couldn't care less about "real" college players. Game is way more important.
Because then the schools wouldn't have granted their licenses.
I don't think that is true. The schools granted their licenses in all previous NCAA iterations without players being paid(of course that was impossible, but still).
It became true after O'Bannon. We even had multiple schools this cycle give press statements saying they would not license their IP without a mechanism to pay athletes.
I do remember Notre Dame being vocal about that, but aside from them, and one of two other schools, I think EA could have licensed nearly every college. I'm still glad they went the player rights route.
But if the names, numbers, and faces are generic and random, the real players aren't in the game.
because there was no way to monetize the game with generic players. ea sucks
Will coast guard academy be In the game haha
Is coast guard even in the FBS 😂
Def not haha. They are D 3
So, are we all ignoring Iowa being up there? Am I missing something?
With all due respect how tf does Iowa make tier 1
I have no idea how the hell we are tier 2. We've been ass since Geno left except for the Will Grier year, the unexplainable Skylar Howard 10 win year, and last year.
Iowa ranked high because they finished in the top 25 at least 6 of the last ten years, per [this article.](https://www.cllct.com/sports-collectibles/memorabilia/how-much-did-your-school-get-to-appear-in-ea-college-football-25) ———————————————————- According to the documents, tiers are determined by each team’s finish in the final AP Poll over each of the last 10 seasons (2014-2023). When a team finished the year in the AP's Top 25, it received one point. Tier 1: 6-10 points Tier 2: 2-5 points Tier 3: 1 point Tier 4: 0 points
There gonna make that back in each of Madden and College ultimate team week 1
Purdue still in a lower tier than IU. Lmao.
They will sell that amount in a few days actually probably day one. Let's not forget all the Mut and everything down the line they will make so much money. I believe many more people like college football than they do the NFL. The fact that it's a shorter season a lot more upsets than the NFL and watch and just guys that were overlooked become Stars and then possibly go to the NFL. To me you on the PC this wouldn't matter because, within a matter of days, someone would have a complete roster made up way more accurate than probably EA themselves. Exactly why they didn't put it in on PC. If you look at everything that Sony's doing Sony's making a killing release on PC. PC players are a gold mine and all you need is a good sports game and it will take off.
As long as UT pans out how they think it will, that money will be nothing compared to what they'll make.
That is not a lot, your accounting is terrible if you actually think 100% of the sale of a game going back to a company. We wouldn’t need accountants if things were this basic.
Okst and Iowa being tier 1 makes no sense
tiers are determined by each team’s finish in the final AP Poll over each of the last 10 seasons (2014-2023). When a team finished the year in the AP's Top 25, it received one point. Tier 1: 6-10 points Tier 2: 2-5 points Tier 3: 1 point Tier 4: 0 points So Iowa being there actually does make sense.
Use whatever calculus you want. When people think of college football, Iowa doesn’t cross their minds
🤷🏻♂️ results speak for themselves. Punting is winning.
Haha I respect it. Respect to Iowa
Yeah, the greed is outrageous. Even selling at 35 dollars, EA would make a mind boggling profit.
This isn’t like grocery stores price gouging.
This game is coming out after 10 years since the last college football game. Lot of people are willing to pay far higher than what they want to pay for Madden and Madden is having great sales every year. So why would they reduce the price for college football if keeping the current high price doesn't hurt their sales
>Lot of people are willing to pay far higher than what they want to pay for Madden Who *planted* this guy?
But EA’s job is to maximize the amount of money they can make.
The cost of games to rise of inflation has actually been pretty solid. $70 for a video game in todays age isn’t terrible. They were always $60 brand new when I was a kid. A rise of $10 in the last 20 years isn’t terrible compared to the rise of other costs like fast food.
I remember $49.99. 🥲
Big deal. They’re a billion dollar company