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Massive 'College Football 25' sales shows players were grossly underpaid
A commercial for the College Football 25 video game. Sara Diggins/American-Statesman / USA TODAY NETWORK

Massive 'College Football 25' sales shows players were grossly underpaid

Electronic Arts' massive sales figures for its hotly anticipated "College Football 25" video game were revealed on Tuesday, and it's a glaring reminder of how grossly underpaid athletes were for this year's edition.

Insider Gaming senior editor Mike Straw reported that the game, released on July 19, has generated a staggering $500 million in less than two weeks.

In February, it was revealed that athletes who opted into the game would earn $600 from EA. MarketWatch reported that 11,390 athletes were in the game, and at $600 per person, that's $6,834,000, or roughly 1.4 percent of the money the game has already made.

The imbalance in earnings is absurd.

The players were the backbone of the release and are the driving force behind the gargantuan sales.

Per MarketWatch, Tim Derdenger, a professor of marketing and strategy at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business, told the publication, "We as gamers want to play as Caleb Williams and Arch Manning... We want to play the game with all these well-known QBs, RBs and WRs."

As On3 notes, the video game series was put on hold for 11 years after college athletes successfully sued the NCAA for profiting off their name, image and likeness without compensation for years under the guise of amateurism rules.

Unfortunately, it's still finding ways to undercut athletes and not give them their fair share.

Now that everyone knows the type of cash cow EA Sports has with "College Football 25," players need to demand more from next year's game.

Eric Smithling

Eric Smithling is a writer based in New Orleans, LA, whose byline also appears on Athlon Sports. He has been with Yardbarker since September 2022, primarily covering the NFL and college football, but also the NBA, WNBA, men’s and women’s college basketball, NHL, tennis and golf. He holds a film studies degree from the University of New Orleans

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