Proposed NIL Rules Won’t Allow For Return Of EA Sports College Football

For those Tiger fans, like myself, that enjoyed throwing touchdowns from a Clemson quarterback to a Tiger receiver, or having a Clemson running back run over gamecock defenders for a score on the way to winning multiple National championships are gonna be disappointed. No, not in real life but in the gaming world. 

With the NCAA Board of Governors looking to move forward on the issue of letting student athletes be paid from the use of their name, image, and likeness, it now looks very unlikely that EA Sports ‘NCAA Football’ video game will be making a return. 

https://twitter.com/henryskutt/status/1255487348378341381?s=20

Yes, the board has stated their plans to move foward and allow student athletes to be compensated for sponsorships and endorsement deals as early as the 2021-22 academic year but the co-chair of that group, Big East commissioner Val Ackerman, stated the new guidelines would not allow student athletes to be represented in video games with school licensing.

Val Ackerman stated in a conference call on Wednesday that…

“It was the group’s conclusion that group licenses which would combine school trademarks with student athlete NIL in products like video games, replica jerseys, and trading card collections are unworkable in college sports. Largely because of the absence of a collective bargaining agency to manage the terms of group NIL use on behalf of the student athletes. New NIL rules would not allow the use of school logos, trademarks, or other intellectual property in any sponsorship initiatives. The lack of a union or bargaining unit makes group licensing in college sports unworkable.”

The only way that ‘NCAA Football’ would be able to make a return would be if the working group would go in and amend its recommendations to the Board of Governors to include group licensing. The NIL rules are expected to go into effect for the 2021-22 season. That, of course, is IF the NCAA passes legislation in January 2021 like they are expected to do.

So don’t get your Clemson notepads out to start planning your moves in Dynasty mode just yet, because it’s looking more and more like the only planning that’s gonna involve Clemson Football players scoring touchdowns will be when the Tigers actually hit the field. Or, if you own an old version of the video game.