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EA Sports is back in the basketball video game business.
A UNC grad and former employee of the athletic department is chief marketing officer at Electronic Arts Sports, the billion-dollar company headquartered in California. They are also the tech geniuses that had to drop games from other sports because of lawsuits from real players who saw their e-counterparts and thought that wasn’t exactly kosher.
EA Sports still has Madden Football and returned to the college gridiron before last season, but basketball has been off limits since the company got sued big time by a group of players led by former UCLA star Ed O’Bannon, who saw a game figure that looked like him, wore his old number at UCLA and even shot left-handed, the way O’Bannon did for the 1995 NCAA champion Bruins.
Whatever he made out of the settlement, O’Bannon did not get anything until at least 20 years after his college playing career ended. Incidentally, that judge was Claudia Wilken who also presided over the recently settled House vs. NCAA antitrust suit.
EA Sports’ official proposal to the College Licensing Company (CLC) was officially accepted in June. But now the work starts on how to build the new game and how much NIL money will go to the players they use. Way more complicated than just using the star players.
Now college basketball is coming back, and it has taken all these years, days and months in court and obviously working under the auspices of NIL and whoever is in charge of that these days. The new game is actually still in development, despite EA’s announcement about its return, and is scheduled to go on sale in the summer of 2028.
Bring the Madness. Let’s run it back. #CBB #ItsInTheGame pic.twitter.com/iBNhGxn2yj
— EA SPORTS (@EASPORTS) June 30, 2025
O’Bannon’s suit took years to get into court, long after his NBA career fizzled out and he could devote more time to it. That was the time college basketball was the till in the hands of the NCAA, which had lost its control of college football on TV in 1984 when the Supreme Court gave it to the networks and the conferences in that antitrust case.
O’Bannon’s net worth is listed at $800,000, which is way too low for several reasons. He was the ninth pick in the 1995 draft and played only two seasons in the NBA before going overseas for the next seven years. And he should have made more from the $40 million settlement in his case.
The new version will include 700 NCAA Division I men’s and women’s teams. Real players will be involved with their electronic namesakes in terms of NIL contracts and payouts. Potentially, the rosters will change every two years to allow more players to get involved with the game and NIL revenues.
Like football fans clamoring for the return of the college e-game and the annual maintenance of Madden football, college basketball fans will have time to build excitement about the new game before its release. That is smart marketing, Tar Heel at EA Sports.
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Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
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