We just might have an EA Sports College Football group license solution that doesn't involve Congress
Matt Brown
June 30, 2021
Good morning, and thanks for your continued support of Extra Points.
There's been just an absolute fire hose of news over the last few days. Let me share a few of the most interesting things I've read recently:
Maybe we can figure out this group license thing without a union OR federal legislation
The bulk of state level NIL legislation, and for that matter, NCAA policy, has been centered around individual NIL licenses. Individual licenses, after all, was where the biggest demand was. One athlete enters into a deal with one brand, gets one paycheck.
But there's also brand interest in packaging the licenses of lots of different athletes together. Want to sell jerseys with athlete names on them? That'd require a group license. Want to buy trading cards with current athletes? That'd require a group license. And most relevant to my audience...if you want to play the next EA Sports College Football video game with the actual names and likenesses of college athletes, and not QB #12 or whoever, you need a group license.
A few weeks ago, I talked to Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman about group licenses. She believes that such arrangements would require either a college athlete union, or a federally recognized bargaining unit that could be created by federal legislation. I know other high profile college athletic administrators believe this as well. After all, a group license for apparel or video games is a license that combines athlete IP and university IP.
But not everybody sees things that way.
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