Why everybody, even ADs, should care about the online revolt against EA College Football 27

Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.

A couple of announcements today. Let’s get right into it.

First, I am going on a family vacation from July 17-28. Because I am a big stupid idiot, I am driving my family from Chicago to Wyoming, then down to Salt Lake City, before going back to Chicago. I think this is gonna end up being, like, a 3,000-mile lap around the middle of America.

Our plan is to run some freelance stories while I’m gone (and maybe a pre-written post or two if I can find enough time to knock ‘em out), and while I’ll be very reachable on the phone, I’ll be slow to respond to emails and whatnot. So if you have some mission critical thing you want to send me, well, do it soon! Folks who want to contribute freelance stories, send us pitches at [email protected].

A quick follow-up about freelance stories: While I love to get pitches from journalists and professional writers, I am also happy to publish (and pay for) freelance stories from industry leaders, current or former college athletes, conference leaders, etc. I saw, for example, that Baylor athletic director Doug McNamee recently published an editorial about the fan experience  in USA TODAY. I know a lot of ADs and CEO-types read Extra Points … so if the spirit moves you to share your thoughts about something, I am happy to pass the microphone.

Second, I want to make you all aware of something new we’re building via the Extra Points Library to bring our data to a wider audience. We want to be able to take a school’s financial reports, coach contracts, vendor agreements, benchmarking and sport-specific analysis and roll it into one comprehensive report. We’re going to start with Michigan.

This report will unpack the financial picture of the athletic department and show how it compares to others in the Big Ten. It’ll share where Michigan ranks in spending (and revenue) in every major sport, trends over the past few years and much, much more.

The digital report will be ready on July 28 and will be free for all Extra Points users with an annual premium subscription plan ($84/year). Pre-order your report here by upgrading.

If you are interested in a report for another school, please let me know which schools you’d like to see here.

Here’s a quick preview of one of the charts we’ll be including:

BTW, please nobody tell the ol’ alma mater that I did Michigan first.

Okay, enough housekeeping. Let’s talk about video games for a second.

Yesterday marked the formal global release of EA Sports College Football 27, the much anticipated third release since the series returned in 2024. Extra motivated users could pay a little more money to get their hands on the game early, which thousands of folks did.

Typically, any EACFB game has four major game modes: a competitive mode where players compete online with current rosters, an Ultimate Team card-collecting roster builder, Road to Glory (where players start out as a fictional high school player and play out that person’s college career) and Dynasty (where players take over a program, sign recruits, expand their coaching skills, etc.). Of these four, Dynasty is the most popular.

After all, who doesn’t want to take over a program like Kent State or Sacramento State and turn it into a massive powerhouse?

In CFB25 and CFB26, the only game mode that included microtransactions (prompts to spend real money after you’ve already purchased the $70 game) was Ultimate Team. Most sports games have similar game modes now, which can be very lucrative for video game publishers. While players don’t have to spend any additional money to complete game challenges or compete online, if they want to compete at the highest levels, they probably need to spend money to increase their chances of getting better cards for their team.

This system is often criticized as anti-consumer, pay-to-win, etc. But if gamers don’t want that experience, well, they can play single-player or pick one of the many other game modes and simply not engage with the microtransaction world.

But for CFB27, EA Sports introduced microtransactions into Dynasty and Road to Glory.

You certainly don’t have to spend any extra money on those modes if you don’t want to. But while previous versions of the game allowed players to modify how quickly they could progress, EA moved some of those customization options behind an additional paywall. You want to max out your Dynasty coach skills on your single-player experience without spending 27 years going undefeated? Well, time to open the wallet.

In practice, these particular microtransaction options won’t impact the vast majority of casual players. If you’re only playing a dynasty for a few seasons — or you aren’t trying to get your Road to Glory player all the way to 99 overall — you absolutely don’t need to spend any money.

But consumers, already frustrated with EA’s less-than-stellar reputation, pushed back on principle. Many Youtubers and creators who previously had commercial relationships with EA led an online movement, sharing their anger over feeling that the video game publisher was trying to nickel and dime them. You might have seen the hashtags on social media, #EAplaydontpay.

That frustration is starting to show in how the game is being received by the market. As of Thursday evening, the review scores for CFB27 are meaningfully lower than the other games in the series.

As of Thursday evening, EA had walked back some of the microtransactions in Dynasty mode but had not removed them from Road to Glory.

That’s a fair point. There is no way to completely placate all of sports video game Reddit, and some folks are always gonna be angry. Online fan backlash to microtransactions in sports games isn’t new, either — and it isn’t confined to just EA! — but the industry doesn’t seem to be slowing the practice down.

Still, I do think it is important for everybody, from video game publishers to athletic directors to small business owners, to remember that customer goodwill is not a limitless reservoir. If you constantly make withdrawals from that Bank of Goodwill without making deposits, eventually, your checks are going to bounce.

In 2024, EA held a truly massive amount of leverage over the college sports industry because it understood how badly schools, and athletes, wanted to be in that game. Consumers had gone a decade without it and were going to buy it no matter what. That meant EA could secure relatively favorable licensing terms, lean on schools to do the dirty work of signing everybody up for Compass and whatnot, and even get free marketing from campus partners.

But I don’t think that’s the case in 2027. The novelty of a college football game has died down a bit, and thanks to the surge in AI, plus international politics, console video gaming has suddenly become a lot more expensive. Consumers are also remembering why they were so frustrated with EA over the past decade. People are still going to buy the game, don’t get me wrong … but the product can’t rely on nostalgia and vibes alone to power sales, especially now that a combination of Jared Kushner and the Saudi PIF own EA. It’s gonna have to work for that loyalty.

The same thing is true with colleges. In an era where every single school is terrified about not generating enough revenue, colleges are raising ticket prices, slapping sponsorships on stuff that never had sponsorships before, changing how ticketing and parking work and asking even more aggressively for money. You can do that, and you sometimes need to do that, but if you don’t demonstrate to consumers that you care … eventually, they’re going to stop giving.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure: I did buy my copy of CFB27. I’ve played for a few hours already and plan to play more over at least the next two months. But I can certainly feel myself looking at the game with a more critical eye, and not just because of the social media backlash over pricing. I don’t need the game, and if it doesn’t improve, or if it becomes more anti-consumer, I simply won’t play it or buy it again.

I don’t think we’re anywhere close to the point where enough consumers will do the same and make EA really scared. But it’s happened before and could happen again. Nobody should take their customers for granted.

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I’ve got some other reporting coming about jersey patches, plus lots of other fun stories. If you like Extra Points and want to support our work, consider upgrading to a full subscription today here. It’s only $9, and you get a lot of stuff.

Thanks, friends. I’ll see you on the internet.