NCAA and EA Sports Contract Expires

About a month ago, you may remember I wrote an article that EA Sports was considering eventually bringing back their NCAA basketball franchise. Well, yesterday the odds of that happening were lowered even more.The NCAA has chosen not to renew its contract with EA Sports.

"The NCAA has made the decision not to enter a new contract for the license of its name and logo for the EA Sports NCAA Football video game. The current contract expires in June 2014, but our timing is based on the need to provide EA notice for future planning. As a result, the NCAA Football 2014 video game will be the last to include the NCAA’s name and logo. We are confident in our legal position regarding the use of our trademarks in video games. But given the current business climate and costs of litigation, we determined participating in this game is not in the best interests of the NCAA."

The good news from this is that all it really means is that EA will not be allowed to use the NCAA name or logo. When it comes to the schools, it is their decision on an individual basis if they want to be included in a football game or not. That means that EA can still make a game involving the colleges provided they all agree to re-sign a contract with the video game company.

When it comes to football, odds are that schools will opt to allow EA to use their likeness because it is a very lucrative game and the contract must be worth a pretty penny. Unfortunately for us basketball fans, the college basketball games were never high seller the way their football siblings were.

Since that is the case, the odds that EA decides to create a new basketball game, without the NCAA’s logo, is very unlikely since it would probably sell even less without the name recognition.

If anything we can keep hoping for a new game but it keeps looking less and less likely.