College Football Players Get $600, Amazon Snags An Exclusive Playoff Game for $150 Million, And Apple Takes Its Next Step In Sports
What To Expect: Today’s newsletter examines three of the hottest topics in sports business: 1) EA Sports’ new college football video game, 2) Amazon paying $150 million for an exclusive NFL playoff game, and 3) Apple’s new Sports app.
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EA Sports Plans To Pay College Athletes $600 For Use Of Their NIL
EA Sports has started sending out contracts to student-athletes to have their name, image, and likeness appear in its new college football video game. Each player that signs the agreement will receive $600 in cash and a free copy of the game, with over 11,000 players from all 134 FBS schools being presented with the contract.
Many people seem to have a problem with this. They say Electronic Arts is a $40 billion company that brought in nearly $8 billion in revenue last year alone, and $600 per player is not nearly enough, considering the average NFL player gets paid around $30,000 annually for being included in the Madden video game franchise.
But that anger is misguided. Not only are NFL rosters much smaller than NCAA rosters, with 11,000 college players versus 1,700 NFL players. But the college football video game previously made a fraction of what Madden does annually ($80 million vs. $600 million), and the $30,000 number you hear NFL players throw around includes all 40+ of the licensing deals negotiated by the NFLPA, not just payment from Madden.