EA Sports College Football 24 Keeps 2024 Release Window After Lawsuit Settlement

After settling a player likeness lawsuit, EA Sports College Football 24 keeps its 2024 release window.

By Ricky Frech

Ever since the Name-Image-Likeness rules were implemented into the NCAA, video game fans have been waiting for EA Sports to return to its incredibly successful College Football franchise. Those fans' hopes were largely answered when EA announced that it was working on a new version of EA Sports College Football that was tentatively slated for summer 2024. However, that plan seemed to hit a bit of a snafu when The Brandr Group, which works to complete collegiate group licensing deals, filed a lawsuit against EA Sports in June. Fortunately, it appears that all of those issues have been ironed out because The Brandr Group has withdrawn its lawsuit over the weekend, paving the way for EA Sports College Football 24 to make its way to the market next year.

This news comes from On3.com, a site dedicated to following NIL deals and the business of sports in general. The core of the lawsuit came down to EA Sports partnering with OneTeam, which is one of The Brandr Group's main competitors, to complete NIL deals back in May. In a joint statement, the two groups announced an "amicable settlement of their past disputes related to college group licensing" and have "agreed to adopt a model that both complements their respective core businesses while separating and operating as completely independent companies."

EA Sports College Football 24 Release Date

Essentially, the two companies are working together to bring the best deal possible to collegiate athletes as part of EA's upcoming game. For its part, EA said, "We are pleased that BrandR has decided to withdraw their claims without any payment from EA. We've been clear from the beginning that this suit had no merit. Our focus continues to be on directly licensing individual college athlete name and likeness rights through an opt-in program that will give college athletes the choice if they want to be in our game. We're pleased to move on from these claims and look forward to delivering EA SPORTS College Football in Summer 2024."

As you can see, there are no longer any NIL-related roadblocks left that EA needs to clear. Obviously, things on the development side could push things back, but as long as players are willing to sign on, they'll be in the game as soon as it launches. Of course, EA hasn't given players much indication of what will be included when the game does launch. 

Thus far, all we really know is that the developers are planning to make Dynasty its "flagship mode." That's a bit surprising when you consider how much money Electronic Arts makes from microtransactions in its Ultimate Team modes. College Football 24 will likely still have a card-collecting mode, but it might be a bit more barebones than sports fans are used to for the first year. Alternatively, EA could look at ways to add microtransactions into Dynasty Mode through cosmetics and recruiting bonuses. Regardless, Dynasty Mode fans can rest easy that the mode will remain one of the main modes in NCAA College Football 24.

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