Here's what I've learned about college baseball programs and MLB The Show 26

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Last week, college basketball returned to video game consoles, thanks to an update to NBA2K26, with a pathway to a more extensive college basketball experience on the immediate horizon. College football fans, of course, have the EA Sports College Football series, which will release another addition to the franchise this Summer.

And now, college baseball fans will get another reason to celebrate.

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MLB The Show 26 will include 19 official college baseball programs in their single-player Road to the Show mode, more than double the eight teams from last year’s game. This year’s edition will also feature deeper and more extensive integration of college baseball.

The specific 19 teams, Extra Points can confirm, will be: Cal State Fullerton, TCU, Tennessee, University of South Carolina, UCLA, Texas, Vanderbilt, LSU, UNC, Stanford, Michigan, Florida, Arkansas, Virginia, FSU, Oregon State, Wake Forest, Clemson and Fresno State.

That puts UCLA, Texas, UNC, Michigan and Florida in rarified air as the only programs to be included in college football, basketball and baseball video games this cycle.

I caught up with Steve Merka, the Game Director for MLB The Show, to better understand what exactly is going to be in the game, why it is there, and what gamers (and schools) should expect moving forward.

Merka describes Road to the Show as a "single player Sports RPG-like experience”, where the user creates a baseball player, begins their career as a high school prospect, and then plays through college, the minors, and eventually, the major leagues.

In this year's edition, players will first need to get recruited by one of the in-game colleges. Merka told me that it will be easier for players to be recruited by more local colleges, but they’ll need to play much better in order to attract high interest from schools across the county. “If I’m in Georgia, it will be much harder for me to get an offer at Oregon State, because it would be more expensive for the Beavers to fly out and scout me, right?” Depending on how badly a program wants the player, they might offer stronger stat boots or awards, so a player might have to decide between a “better” scholarship than the school they really want. 

You know, just like in real life.

The college gameplay will kick in during the player’s junior season, at the College World Series. If you don’t get the storybook ending you wanted, or if your draft stock isn’t quite what you want it to be, players will have the option to return to school for their senior year, and get another crack at the postseason. 

What sorts of college IP will be in the game?

Merka told me that college logos, uniforms and icoStatenography will all be included in the Road to the Show. “The gear that you see fans wearing in the stands, that will be representative of that school. We have specific college celebrations, crowd chants, and stuff like that. Our presentation team worked really hard on trying to get good audio support for crowd noises, team-specific animations, and stuff like that.”

One thing you won’t see are the school’s specific stadiums, since all of the gameplay will take place in a digitally remastered Charles Schwab Field for the College World Series. 

Unlike in College Football 26 or NBA2K26, you also won’t see any actual college players. The licensing deal secured for MLB The Show is only for college intellectual property. No athlete NIL is used in this edition of the game.

Could that change in the future? After all, using real player names and models as a potential funnel into a minor league system would certainly make the game more immersive. Merka told me any potential expansive licensing of athlete IP is “TBD.” 

College IP will also be limited to the Road to the Show mode, I’m told, and will not appear in other game modes, like Diamond Dynasty (the MLB The Show version of Ultimate Team). 

Why were these specific schools chosen?

Merka told me that the development team wanted to secure a cross-section of schools from different regions of the country, while also spotlighting some of the most historic programs in the sport. Fresno State is also where cover athlete Aaron Judge played baseball, so including them made sense. Merka also told me that the development team was able to secure the participation from every program they wanted…nobody turned them down.

Of course, with over 300 D1 college baseball programs, it’s hard to perfectly do that with just 19 teams. Merka was happy to compliment the history and tradition of many other programs outside major conferences, like Coastal Carolina and Southern Miss. Perhaps in the future, the roster of teams could expand even more. “There are so many more schools that we’d love to represent.”

This year’s college game expanded, in large part, according to Merka, because of community feedback. He stressed that his team badly wants to know what people like and dislike about the game, because they want to create the best experience possible. “That feedback is how you get better.”

That desire stems, at least in part, from the fact that the development team is full of baseball nerds

Before chatting with me, Merka told me that he and a few of his colleagues had actually just gotten back from a 24-hour batting cage. Many of the key development team players played baseball in high school, college, and even the professional ranks, and still play the game on a regular basis. 

That passion informs the desire to bring out both an attention to detail, a commitment to realism..but also the reality that you’re playing a video game.

In "Road to the Show," he told me, “You have to feel like you’re making progress. You have to feel like the hero, because that’s what every RPG is about. But you have to understand that to feel like a hero, you gotta feel like you really killed that dragon. We want to celebrate those big pieces, which is why the College World Series is a big deal. We want you to feel like that event makes a major impact on that chapter of your life as a ballplayer.”

But it’s also baseball, so that means that you’re going to strike out, foul out, boot balls and otherwise make mistakes. Hitting .976 and clobbering 500 homers a season doesn’t make for as effective and interesting of a story, after all. The development team’s push for realism and immersion means that the player is going to fail sometimes. A college baseball game, by necessity, is going to feel a little more chaotic than a Dodgers/Yankees game, because you’re working with aluminum bats and younger, less developed players. 

The team wanted the college game to feel different from a minors or majors game.

But having success and failure can also create a more rewarding narrative experience, which is exactly what Merka is hoping for.

“I was playing the game myself recently, and I was looking to go play for Oregon State. But as I was playing through high school, I just didn’t perform as well as I wanted. It happens. The Beavers were interested, but I never got a formal offer, and I ended up picking another college.”

“And then, well, it’s the opening round of the CWS, and I’m playing Oregon State. So that’s the great redemption story…I didn’t get into the college I wanted to, and now I’m playing them. I hit a walk-off homer in the bottom of the 10th, and at that moment, it felt so good.”

“That’s the point. That’s what our game sells.”

MLB Road to the Show 26 officially launches on March 17. Those who purchase the Digital Deluxe Edition can access the game on March 13. 

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Thanks for reading, everybody. I’ll see you on the internet next week.