Temporary restraining order could delay EA Sports' college football video game

There’s good news and bad news for fans desperate to play EA Sports’ new college football video game scheduled to release next summer. We’ll start with the bad.

A temporary restraining order has been filed by The Brandr Group that, if granted, would prohibit EA Sports from offering deals to schools and athletes. This comes after the video game company contracted OneTeam Partners to facilitate college athletes’ likeness with a cash pool of $5 million, sources tell On3’s Pete Nakos, resulting in $500 per player — with no royalties.

“This is far below industry standard,” FOS sports business reporter Amanda Christovich told Peter Burns on KSR this morning. “Every single professional sports video game, every single jersey deal, anybody involved in one of these deals, they always get royalties. That’s where the money is.”

The Brandr Group, who has group licensing deals with 54 Division I schools, claimed EA Sports tried to circumvent these contracts to offer deals to schools and athletes to be a part of the game without its knowledge. That led to an initial lawsuit, filed last week.

“They’re trying to make the lawsuit sound like it’s about fairness of the athletes, but it’s actually about who has jurisdiction to negotiate on the athletes’ behalf,” Christovich added. “… (The Brandr Group) is trying to say, ‘We have contracts with schools. And at every school, we have a contract with the athletes who can opt-in to work for or work with us to negotiate group licensing deals. And since EA is offering these deals that we were not privy to, this is illegal, and we think that we can negotiate better.”

Now comes the temporary restraining order, hoping to force EA to not do business with any of the schools or athletes The Brandr Group claims are under their jurisdiction until the lawsuit is settled.

If the order is granted, an injunction could be filed. Before then, though, EA has filed its own order to deny the restraining order.

“The preliminary injunction would be in place throughout the entire pendency of the case. So, that could slow things down,” Mit Winter, a college sports attorney at Kansas City-based Kennyhertz Perry, told On3. “So much depends on who they have agreements with, we don’t know who Brandr has agreements with. Plus, EA could just move forward without those athletes. It could be worse for the athlete because then they’re not getting paid.”

Christovich agrees, and that’s where the good news comes in, at least for fans wanting the game in their hands at the scheduled release date. EA told The Athletic last week “the game is on track and is a priority,” adding that the complaint will not impact the release date.

The FOS reporter said on KSR that EA has time on its side when it comes to building a roster, which won’t come until the spring. Because, well, that’s when college football rosters are finalized every year.

“We’ll see if that happens. If the court rules in Brandr Group’s favor, that would be the reason the game could potentially be pushed back. However, EA in their response filing — and this is the good news for those of you hoping to lock yourself in a room for a week and play the game in the summer of 24 — is that unless that happens, unless it goes until literally next summer, it doesn’t seem like it would necessarily delay the game.

“EA is prepared to not even know which athletes are going to be eligible to be in the game until next spring. They were saying, ‘We’re gonna have the rosters for the 2024-25 season, so we’re obviously not going to know the rosters until the spring of 2024.’ So long as this lawsuit is resolved by then, even if this restraining order and injunction are granted, it should be OK.'”

At minimum, EA could decide to build a game with generic rosters and avoid NIL payouts entirely if the red tape is too much to cut through. The company clearly wants the game one way or another. It’d be unfortunate to not play with, say, Dane Key or Barion Brown, but it’s on the table.

“The other thing of course is EA could just decide not to include the athletes at all if it’s too much of a headache,” she added.

And that’s what roster share is for.