There is no shortage of excitement for the return of EA Sports’ beloved College Football video game series this summer, a franchise returning due to the advent of NIL payouts for college athletes which allowed their likenesses to be in the game.
But the schools are also receiving money, with four tiers of payouts to universities for their presence in College Football 25:
EA Sports is paying colleges for CFB25 based on a tier system using AP Poll finishes from the past 10 years👀<br><br>Tier 1: $99,875.16<br>Tier 2: $59,925.09<br>Tier 3: $39,950.06<br>Tier 4: $9,987.52<br><br>(via <a href="https://twitter.com/cllctMedia?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@cllctMedia</a>) <a href="https://t.co/tFYOO4In3n">pic.twitter.com/tFYOO4In3n</a>
According to Matt Liberman of Cllct, teams received a point for finishing a season in the Top 25 of the Associated Press Poll. Teams with 6-10 points were slotted in Tier 1, 2-5 points in Tier 2, one point in Tier 3 and no points in Tier 4.
That left some notable and surprising teams in the various tiers. Iowa, Oklahoma State and Utah may not be considered powerhouses in the sport, but they have consistently been ranked in the Top 25 enough to land in Tier 1.
USC, Florida State and Texas are thought of as traditional powerhouses, meanwhile—especially on their respective campuses—but haven’t consistently been so in the past decade, moving them down to Tier 2.
Deion Sanders brought a lot of excitement and hype to Colorado upon taking over as head coach, but the team’s relative lack of success before his arrival left them down in Tier 3.
The only schools outside of the Power Five conferences (ACC, SEC, Big 12, Big Ten and Pac-12) in the top two tiers were Boise State, Memphis, Louisiana, Liberty, Utah State, San Diego State, Fresno State and Navy. That’s just eight schools out of 54 total represented in the top two tiers.
Alabama, Clemson and Ohio State led all schools with 10 total points. Notre Dame, Oklahoma and Georgia were next up with eight points, followed by LSU and Michigan at seven and Oregon, Oklahoma State, Penn State, Utah and Iowa at six.
The Big Ten led all conferences with five Tier 1 selections, bolstered by new addition Oregon. The SEC followed with four Tier 1 teams.
The agreement between the schools and EA Sports is for the next four iterations of the game, per Liberman, and “schools will receive additional payments based on the success of the game” and will receive a “10 percent royalty on sales.”
It was not clear if that was based on net or gross sales.
Tiers can also shift as the 10-year ranking period changes.
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.
