Picture this:
Coke Zero approaches the NCAA team and says: We will pay you to create Mascot Game and Season Showdown. Neither will take much time to develop and will invariably make 8 year olds buy the game at Wal-Mart. The tradeoff will be that a little of your gameplay development time will be used up. That may upset that hardcore sports gamers but let's face it, they'll buy the game anyway. Work on something that appeals to people who normally won't buy the game because they don't know any better.
Its all about money.