University of Hawaii Scores over $126K in EA Sports Video Game Royalties

By Josh Pacheco

The return of the EA Sports College Football video game franchise has been a hit among nostalgic and new video gamers alike, and Division I college athletic departments are enjoying the residual effects of that popularity.

A University of Hawaii athletic department spokesperson told ESPN Honolulu on Wednesday that as of July 7th, the school received $126,711 in licensing and royalties from EA Sports College Football 26, the second edition of the game’s return to video game consoles.

Hawaii’s number places it in 60th out of 136 Football Bowl Subdivision schools available to play in the game.

The returns from last year’s version of the game are a big improvement over what it received from EA Sports College Football 25, the first iteration of the game since it went dormant in 2014. UH says that it received $98,186 dollars from that game, ranking 73rd out of all FBS schools.

Each school in the video game gets paid based on the amount of times it is played by a user, essentially a popularity contest. The more people play a game representing the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors, the more the school gets in royalties.

The payout then goes to the school’s athletic department to distribute at its discretion.

UH hopes that online popularity will only help to build on the royalties it received in last year’s game as the newest installment, EA Sports College Football 27, will be widely released on July 9th. Just last week, the school received an online “commitment” from popular YouTube content creator “Bordeaux,” (link - https://www.youtube.com/BordeauxYT) who describes himself as a college football content creator with 573,000 followers on the video platform. He posted his first video of him playing an advanced copy of the game on Sunday.

A few schools across the Mountain West Conference have not released their payouts. Nevada Sports Net reports (link - https://nevadasportsnet.com/news/reporters/heres-how-much-nevada-athletics-made-from-being-in-ea-sports-college-football) that the Nevada Wolfpack made $52,351.91 from last year’s game. Wyoming received $153,160 in a combined number from the last two game releases, per WyoSports (link - https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyosports/university_of_wyoming/how-much-has-wyoming-made-from-ea-sports/article_28c007f5-ccd9-4c9a-ba85-5b8f755ca2b6.html).

UH says it expects to receive the final royalty and licensing payout number later this month.