EA SPORTS, in partnership with Learfield and OneTeam Partners, has delivered a milestone in college athletics and sports technology: the largest Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) integration ever implemented in a video game.
With the July 2024 release of EA SPORTS College Football 25, the collaboration between the three companies reintroduced a fan-favorite franchise, but this time with real athletes, licensed rights, and a digital infrastructure designed to support equitable athlete representation across 134 FBS programs.
The title has since become the best-selling North American sports video game of all time, and the project is now seen as a blueprint for how digital content, athlete rights, and tech platforms can converge at scale.
At the core of this effort was Learfield’s Compass NIL platform, an enterprise-grade solution built to handle the complex requirements of student-athlete participation.
More than 16,000 athletes opted into EA SPORTS College Football 25 through Compass, which served as the central hub for permissions, roster updates, and game integration. Learfield’s platform enabled efficient opt-in at scale, something no previous college sports game had achieved.
The Compass system is currently used across over 400 schools, supporting NIL programs for more than 35,000 student-athletes annually. This collaboration marked the platform’s highest-volume deployment to date.
The licensing backbone of the program came from OneTeam Partners, which led athlete outreach, offer delivery, rights aggregation, and payment execution.
With over 16,000 student-athletes participating, OneTeam’s infrastructure had to scale quickly, ensuring transparency, speed, and legal compliance at every stage.
Working in tandem with Learfield and EA SPORTS, OneTeam delivered the first fully commercial NIL operation in sports gaming history. The result: an operational model that balanced efficiency with fairness.
With rights secured and data integrated, EA SPORTS focused on the player and fan experience. The result was an immersive football simulation featuring real player names, likenesses, attributes, and storylines, enhancing both the realism and cultural resonance of the game.
The inclusion of live NIL data within gameplay added a new layer of depth. For fans, it meant seeing their favorite athletes on-screen, accurately represented. For players, it meant visibility and compensation, elements previously absent from college titles.
EA SPORTS leveraged its proprietary gaming engine to create a responsive, dynamic college football world that now serves as a benchmark for future sports titles.
The launch of College Football 25 was more than a return of a beloved game. It demonstrated what’s possible when a gaming powerhouse joins forces with purpose-built NIL technology and rights specialists.
The NIL integration was not an add-on, it was foundational. Payments, licensing, data handling, and player communication were executed on a scale never before seen in a college sports title.
The project’s success now serves as a proof-of-concept for scalable NIL activations across other forms of media and digital content.
“This recognition underscores the power of collaboration in driving innovation, which has helped bring back one of the most popular video games of all time,” said Cory Moss, President of Brand Management & Marketing at Learfield.
“We are thrilled to be able to play a significant role in this process through our Compass NIL platform, which has helped to facilitate meaningful NIL opportunities for student-athletes at a critical time in the current college athletics landscape,” he added.
To date, EA SPORTS College Football 25 has outpaced expectations not only in sales, but also in its influence on athlete marketing and sports entertainment.
With its technical foundation and proven fanbase, College Football 25 isn’t just a win for this year, it’s a launchpad for what comes next.
The success of this project paves the way for new NIL-driven sports titles and deeper player involvement in media licensing. EA SPORTS has already hinted that future releases may expand on this NIL model, with more in-game features tied to real-time athlete data.
For EA SPORTS, this is not a one-off activation. It’s a long-term shift toward more inclusive, player-centric sports gaming.
By combining EA SPORTS’ cultural reach, Learfield’s tech infrastructure, and OneTeam’s licensing engine, this project has reshaped how athletes participate in, and profit from, digital entertainment.
And for the student-athletes? It’s a new era of visibility, opportunity, and fair compensation.
As sports gaming continues to evolve, the College Football 25 partnership will be remembered not only as a comeback story, but as the beginning of a more connected future.
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