Alabama, Ohio State added to EA Sports Madden NFL 22

EA Sports announced that in a coming update to its popular video game franchise “Madden 22,” players will be able to use some of their favorite college teams, as EA added two programs to the popular “Campus Legends” update: Alabama and Ohio State.

Starting Jan. 14, Alabama and Ohio State will be added to the list of preexisting EA Sports campus legends teams on the Madden game. Players can use a list of college teams in-game that includes Clemson, LSU, Texas, Miami, Michigan State, Nebraska, Oregon, Florida, Oklahoma and USC.

“Campus Legends is back in Superstar KO!” EA Sports wrote on its website. “Select college icons are now equipped with Superstar X-Factor abilities to send your gameplay to new heights and new players have been added.”

EA Sports has drawn interest from a myriad of college sports fans in recent months, as the franchise also announced that the company plans to finally relaunch the long-beloved NCAA Football video game in 2023. The company’s announcement that the NCAA Football game would in fact make its return, which came on Feb. 2, 2021, was incredibly well-received by its fans: the initial tweet netted well over 200,000 likes and roughly 140,000 retweets.

For those who never stopped believing…#EASPORTSCollegeFootball pic.twitter.com/2vDUYnbXEJ

— EA SPORTS (@EASPORTS) February 2, 2021

Matt Brown of Extra Points reported a copy of EA Sports’ four-year license proposal, which should help give insight into how much college programs stand to make from the reintroduction of the NCAA Football video game. Though the figures of annual guaranteed money is redacted on the document, it appears that the four-year stretch will allow EA Sports to make NCAA Football video games from 2023 until 2027.

Originally, EA Sports was forced to cancel the popular NCAA Football video game after the NCAA Football 2014 edition due to a high-profile lawsuit filed by former UCLA star basketball player Ed O’Bannon. O’Bannon argued that EA Sports was creating the likes of each player within the game — i.e. QB No. 2 for Texas A&M would have highly-similar characteristics and in-game skills as Johnny Manziel — leading to O’Bannon’s argument that they were using the players’ name, image and likeness without a contractual agreement in place. However, now that players are, in fact, able to profit off their name, image and likeness, the issue can be resolved for future games.

O’Bannon led an antitrust class-action lawsuit against the NCAA that named EA Sports and the Collegiate Licensing Company as co-defendants and argued that the NCAA was wrongfully using athletes’ images commercially. Now that it’s been settled, EA Sports will welcome a new era of NCAA Football.