Clemson football fans will have to wait on NCAA Football video game

Since the legalization of NIL, many Clemson football fans- and fans across the nation- have inquired about the potential for a revival of the NCAA Football video game franchise that captured so much joy for us years ago.

The franchise was discontinued following the release of NCAA Football 14, but there is now hope with athletes now being able to benefit from their name, image and likeness that the game might be brought back to life.

Earlier this month, EA Sports released a statement on the future of the game:

"“We are watching the recent developments regarding student-athlete name, image and likeness very closely. “It’s still very early stages at this point, and we plan to explore the possibility of including players in EA SPORTS College Football. For now, our development team is focused on working with our partners at CLC to ensure the game authentically showcases the great sport of college football and the more than 100 institutions signed on to be featured in our game.”"

Clemson football fans will have to wait a little longer for the return of NCAA Football

Despite hopes that the NIL legislation would mean an immediate return of NCAA Football, a leaked document obtained by Extra Point’s Matt Brown said that EA Sports has a plan to release the newest installment of the game in July of 2023 with a four-year license in place.

Unfortunately, if that remains the case, Clemson football fans will likely never get to play as D.J. Uiagalelei in a Tiger uniform. That means we’ll still have to wait two more years for the game to be developed and released.

It’s understandable that the release of a game takes time, but many were hoping that EA Sports would jump right in and begin developing with a mind’s eye on potentially releasing next summer. That doesn’t seem it will be the case.

EA Sports is going to ‘slow play’ this in some ways and let the NIL situations- and questions that surround the topic- unfold before spending millions of dollars in development.

NCAA Football is returning and it will be here at some point in the future, but we might have to wait a little longer than we’d like.