Following the success ofCollege Football 25,EA Sportsappears to be going ahead with the revival of another long-dormant sports series. College athletes' right to profit from their name, image, and likeness in recent years has resulted in the return ofNCAA Footballunder a new name, which will seeiteration inCollege Football 26this year.
The developer isn’t done with the collegiate athletics comeback, though, asEA Sportsteased in a tweet thatNCAA Basketballwill be returning. It’s an exceptionally short teaser, only saying, “Bring the Madness. Let’s run it back,” but the intent is unmistakable with a photo of a basketball bearing the EA Sports logo. It’s accompanied by the hashtags “#CBB” and “#ItsInTheGame,” the initialism for college basketball and EA Sports' longtime catchphrase, respectively. “Bring the Madness” refers to March Madness, the colloquial name for the annual NCAA Tournament to determine the national basketball champion.
EA Sports Is Bringing Back NCAA Basketball
15 Years After The Last Game
The return ofNCAA Basketballcomes more than 15 years after its last release, 2009’sNCAA Basketball 10. This is an even longer hiatus thanCollege Footballhad, which was on ice sinceNCAA Football 14. Both series have now seen a comeback thanks to collegiate athletics' adoption of NIL deals in recent years.
NIL allows collegiate athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness,thus letting video games likeNCAA BasketballandCollege Footballinclude actual rosters, as long as the athletes agree. Previous games in the series featured nameless stand-ins for the actual players.
Our Take: After CFB Success, It’s Great To See NCAA Returning
A New Golden Age For Sports Games
EA teasing the return ofNCAA Basketball(likely to be renamed, just likeNCAA Football) is a bit of a surprise, but it’s not entirely unexpected.EA Sports College Football 25became the United States' best-selling sports game of all time, according toGamesIndustry.biz. It tracks that EA Sports would want to capitalize on and attempt to replicate that success with another one of its dormant series.
The basketball simulation space has beendominated byNBA 2Kfor years now, and many fans will likely be happy to have a competitor, especially given the wide-reaching appeal of college hoops. March Madness is one of the biggest sporting events of each year, and college ball has a distinctly different style than the professional game played in the NBA.College Football’s return proved to be a hit, andEA Sportsbringing backNCAA Basketballis yet another revival to look forward to.
Sources:EA Sports/Twitter,GamesIndustry.biz
EA Sports
EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts and is responsible for an array of long-running Sports video game franchises. The company is responsible for titles like Fifa, Madden NFL, NBA Live, NHL, and more. The division was founded in 1991 and is currently headquartered in Redwood City, California.
