The NCAA Tells EA Sports "No Mas" After 2014

The NCAA announced today that they will not be renewing their licensing of the EA Sports NCAA Football franchise.

While this doesn't mean that the game itself will not be leaving, it does mean that the O'Bannon-Keller lawsuit against the NCAA may have influenced it.

The current contract expires in June 2014, but our timing is based on the need to provide EA notice for future planning. As a result, the NCAA Football 2014 video game will be the last to include the NCAA’s name and logo. We are confident in our legal position regarding the use of our trademarks in video games. But given the current business climate and costs of litigation, we determined participating in this game is not in the best interests of the NCAA

The one saving grace is this:

The NCAA has never licensed the use of current student-athlete names, images or likenesses to EA. The NCAA has no involvement in licenses between EA and former student-athletes. Member colleges and universities license their own trademarks and other intellectual property for the video game. They will have to independently decide whether to continue those business arrangements in the future.

This does mean that specific schools and conferences will be able to work with EA, as well as ESPN (who had some logos in the game with announcers and such).

Blah. THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS.