NCAA Football Success

[MHammer113]

One thing I am very curious about is whether or not EAs success or lack there of with NCAA Football gives us college hoop fans some hope for a new game. At the tail end of the College Hoops and EA NCAA series sales were really bad, but the lack of a game may push a new game towards more opportunity.

IF NCAA Football sales are excellent next year, which many expect, does someone use this success to push an NCAA basketball game? It also would help that EA has now “paved the way” for creating a college game and handled a lot of the licensing nightmares.

Curious on thoughts here

[UHCoog1]

Re: NCAA Football Success

I doubt it

[FTRPresentation]

Re: NCAA Football Success

I'd kill for another college hoops game.

Let's say for a second, it will get done, I'm curious who is more likely to make it - EA, 2K or a new contender.

Sad thing is, it'll probably take at least 2 years from announcement to game actually being released.

[MHammer113]

Re: NCAA Football Success

2k would be the most organic suitor, especially with NBA 2k integration.

But EA has now created the blueprint of college licensing. A basketball game would not sell as much as college football but it also would be much cheaper to produce.

College football will pay roughly $6.6m in NIL player fees. If every college basketball player opted in at $600 they’d only pay $2.7m

[illwill10]

Re: NCAA Football Success

I highly doubt it. College Basketball is a very niche sport. College Football could be considered as Niche as well, but not as niche as College Basketball. 2k dropped out of the College Hoops market before they even had too. The causal fan isn't going to tune into a random Wednesday game from Dec-February. I wouldn't say that College Football is a star driven sport like the pro sports. But, there's enough marketable players where a casual fan to tune in and the game should sell in the 3-5 million copy range. Whereas in CBB, it feels like it's every 2-3 years where there are marketable players. The casual fan just tunes in for March Madness and seeing upsets

Only thing I'll say about 2k dropping CHoops is that was around the time they were dropping any sports title that wasn't deemed as a success. They pretty much put all their eggs in the NBA 2k basket, and it did work out for them. Even though games like CHoops 2k8 and All Pro 2k8 were received well by the community, they didn't sell well. I do think 2K/Visual Concepts is way more revelant now then it was back in the late 00s. I do feel like 2k Sports is trying to expand their sports games portfolio again. For pretty much a decade, it was just NBA2K and WWE. They announced Top Spin is coming back, whatever they're doing with NFL, 2k has shown they want to expand their catalog. But, I don't think they would go through what they would have to for a game that isn't going to "sell well" or bring in added revenue. Nowadays, the added revenue is a must for sports games. I don't think a MyTeam for CBB would do well compared to Ultimate Team in CFB. Outside of the great one and done players, it's a big difference in the CBB Legends and the CFB Legends when it comes to selling in the MT/UT area.

I don't see EA at all. Mainly because there's no NBA Live. I don't see the logic of building a basketball game from scratch for a game that might not sell well. EA doesn't need CFB to be a flagship title. They can lean on EA FC and Madden. As long as CFB isn't a net negative and brings in added revenue, CFB is good. But, CBB would be like a passion project for them compared to CFB.

Even though I don't watch CBB, I would definitely be interested in a video game. I haven't watched a CBB game since Zion was in college and before then probably just a March Madness game. But, I like the recruiting process and your roster never being set.