EA Sports College Football’s future is facing questions just two years after the franchise’s hugely successful return. In 2024, EA Sports released College Football 25, bringing college football video games back for the first time in 11 years after the end of old NCAA Football franchise.
There wasn’t an official NCAA license with the new game, but that didn’t stop it from becoming one of the best-selling games in the United States in 2024. It sold so well that it led to increased sales for current-gen consoles like the Xbox Series S and PlayStation 5 and finished as the second-best-selling game in the U.S. for the year, just behind Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. It even ended up as the best-selling sports video game in U.S. history by dollar sales.
Suffice it to say, the game was a hit.
That was followed up by another successful year in 2025. While it didn’t perform as well as the first game, College Football 26 was the seventh-best-selling game of the year.
Moving on to College Football 27, there was excitement, but it was followed by frustration and anger from some of the largest members of the creator community when it was discovered that single-player modes like Road to Glory and Dynasty had increased microtransactions while removing previously available options and sliders to push players to those extra purchases.
Eventually, EA relented and removed the extra microtransactions.
At the time, they said that the extra purchase options were added “independent of deeper mode progression with the aim to give players more choice, but what you’ve said is that they’re not adding the value we intended.”
EA removed them, but the company has always planned to bring them back in future releases.
The goal, EA said, for College Football 28 and future entries is to “deliver valuable features and content with greater transparency and communication.”
But what does that future look like? Where does EA Sports College Football go from here?
Rising NIL and Development Costs Put Pressure on EA Sports College Football’s Future
Speaking to multiple sources, I’ve been told that there is a real concern about the future of the College Football franchise. While there will be a game for the next few years, many who spoke, including a couple I would consider to be senior-level around the game, have expressed worry that the franchise could go away in the next five years.
Sales of the game, while still strong, have gradually declined since the peak of excitement in 2024. The game was the second-best-selling game in July 2026 but fell out of the top 10 the following month. For the prior releases, College Football 25 didn’t fall out of the top 10 until February 2025, while College Football 26 dropped out in December 2025.
College Football 27 lasted one month as a standalone inclusion. I say standalone because it is part of the EA Sports Kickoff Bundle that includes both College Football 27 and Madden NFL 27 for $99.99. That was 4th on the best-seller list for August 2026.
Games fluctuate in popularity, and not every game will sell as well as others. But why is there a worry for College Football’s future?
A big reason comes down to finances. College Football 25 paid out $600 to each player who signed on to be a part of the game’s roster. With more than 11,000 players in the game, that was roughly 7–7.5 million going to players.
Fast forward to College Football 27, and that cost has jumped to $1,500 per player. That means the studio is spending just under $20 million in NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) payments alone.
To cover that, EA has to sell about 275,000 copies at $69.99 to cover the NIL. That’s certain to happen, but there are other costs.
EA also has to pay to license universities, bowl games, and other properties. Development and marketing cost tens of millions of dollars each year, too. Base game sales may not be enough to meet EA’s internal expectations, especially if more players buy bundles instead of the standalone game.
EA Plans More Monetization
Sources say that there’s been an internal effort now that they have to find different ways to monetize because, as one put it, “Ultimate Team flopped for us.” It’s still bringing in a lot of money, but far below expectations to counter the continuously rising costs.
Regarding NIL, what started at the $7–7.5 million rate could increase even more. Some believe it may rise to $30-40 million in the coming years if the current pace continues.
For monetization, every source reaffirmed it will be back in modes like Road to Glory and Dynasty. One said, “It’s going to piss people off, and if it bothers certain people enough, it could have a bigger ripple effect on us.”
But why is there that fear for the game’s future? One source put it quite bluntly.
We’re not FC. We’re not Madden. We don’t make the money they do, and everyone knows it.. But it’s at the point where if we don’t find a way to keep players around and, in turn, make more, we won’t have anything.
Forget in 10 years, I’m scared about if we have a game by the end of the decade. Games aren’t getting cheaper to make, and there’s the real concern with all of us that EA’s going to streamline and just have a few key franchises and dump everything else.
It’s worth mentioning that there were sources who feel the worry is a bit overblown. They said that EA “knows what we have with this franchise.” The idea of the company streamlining to just a handful of franchises felt “overdramatic,” though they didn’t want to necessarily put down those working on the game who feel that way. They still believe, they said, that the future of the franchise is strong.
EA did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.
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Mike has been covering the gaming industry since 2012, and has reported on some of the largest events in the industry while also working as an investigative reporter. Outside of…
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The game was good when it came out, but each update just makes the game more unplayable. Not to mention the dumbing down of teams to make it a “fair” game. Pushing us to pay so much for a game then having the highest microtransactions in gaming just to play different modes is gonna push players away even more. Theyre shooting themselves in the foot