In what may only be a tiny fissure in the petrified hunk of antebellum shit that is the NCAA, the organization has announced that they will be parting ways with EA Sports after 2014.
The NCAA and EA ran press releases yesterday afternoon confirming that the NCAA Football 2014 video game will be the last product with any NCAA branding. The games will remain intact otherwise, with each school continuing to manage its licensing through the IMG-owned Collegiate Licensing Company.
EA’s executive vice president, Andrew Wilson, confirms, “Our relationship with the Collegiate Licensing Company is strong and we are already working on a new game for next generation consoles which will launch next year and feature the college teams, conferences…”.
The following is our estimation of the NCAA Basketball '14 cover:
The NCAA’s timing in its decision to discontinue its partnership with EA is funny. If a giant Ed O’Bannon-shaped cloud looming over your every move is funny. O’Bannon, along with Oscar Robertson and dozens of former college athletes, are in the middle of an antitrust suit because NCAA has been making buttloads upon buttloads of money using their likenesses in video games even though they're not college athletes anymore. We're waiting to see if the courts will certify that suit as a class action.
In NCAA language: “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.”
Translation, obviously: “Fuck this, we gone.”
