Athletic department budgets have been a hot topic of conversation lately, what with schools now being permitted to directly pay athletes thanks to the House settlement getting approved last Friday evening.
Well, there will soon be a way in which fans can help contribute to those budgets — by playing a video game.
Late last week, Matt Liberman of cllct — a collectibles website founded by longtime sports business analyst Darren Rovell — reported that schools will receive money based on how often they are played with on the video game College Football 26, which is slated to be released July 10.
Here’s how it will work, according to Liberman: Electronic Arts, the creator of the game, will divvy out a certain (unknown) amount of money to schools featured in CFB 26 based on how much the schools are played with by users.
As an example from Liberman, say EA will set aside $5 million to pay out to schools based on frequency of gameplay. If one school accounts for 1% of of the gameplays, it will receive $50,000, or 1% of $5 million.
As noted by Liberman, last year schools were paid using a tier system based on how often they had been in the final Associated Press Top 25 poll each of the last 10 seasons.
According to Liberman, Utah was in Tier 1 alongside 12 other schools and received nearly $100,000, while BYU and Utah State were both in Tier 2 with 39 other schools and received nearly $60,000.
“The new arrangement should allow schools with breakout stars, who are used more often in the game, to potentially retain that player through increased NIL funds,” Liberman wrote.
Liberman also reported that players featured in the game will receive more compensation than they did last year. For the 2025 game they received $600 but are now expected to receive between $1500 and $3,000.
CFB 25 was a return to market for EA’s college football video game franchise. It had gone dormant for a decade, as in many ways it was the beginning platform for legal fights over name, image and likeness that resulted in last week’s House settlement.