College Football

EA Sports' College Football 25 will include Heisman Trophy, miss other major awards

Published Mar. 8, 2024 4:29 p.m. ET

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Before EA Sports decided to cancel its college football video game series a decade ago, players of the game were able to win real trophies in the "Road to Glory" and "Dynasty" modes that college football players are awarded annually. However, in the new upcoming EA Sports "College Football 25," that will not be the case. 

According to a report from On3 on Friday, the president of the National College Football Awards Association, Mark Wolpert, stated that the entity declined an offer to participate in the game. 

"The offer that has been made is not adequate for the rights fee for the awards," Wolpert said, per On3. 

As a result, prominent college football awards such as the Bednarik, Biletnikoff, Davey O'Brien, Doak Walker, Grozo, Jim Thorpe, Maxwell, Outland and Ray Guy will not be included in the game. 

Meanwhile, the Heisman Trust, which is independently operated, officially announced Friday that the Heisman Trophy will be included in the game.

Wolpert was open to the possibility of reconsidering and having the awards be included in future editions of the game if EA changed its offer. He did not disclose the specifics of the new offer for the awards, but called it a "nominal increase based on the 2014 number," when the game was last released. 

"It was not something that was representative of any either major awards, assigning image rights and usage rights to a game which we all believe is going to be very popular and going to sell a lot of copies based on past history," Wolpert said, per On3. "There's an appetite for that game. And if the brands are going to be represented there, we want to be compensated properly. So when I explained that to the EA rep, the response came back to me that if we choose not to do that, they'll just make their own awards up and put them in the game.

"My thought at the time was, ‘Well, you have approached us about the importance of authenticity in the game, yet you’re very quick to dismiss awards, some of which have existed for eight decades. So how is the game authentic when you don't have the authentic awards in it?"

EA Sports' "College Football 25" will have a full reveal in May and an expected summer release date. It is the first college sports video game to compensate athletes for their name, image and likeness (NIL) for their agreement to participate in the game. The company announced earlier this week that more than 10,000 players have opted in. 

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