EA Sports teased the return of its college basketball video game series back in June, but new reports indicate the company may have missed its shot. In a memo obtained by Extra Points and verified by The Athletic, EA Sports vice president of commercial partnerships and licensing Sean O’Brien rescinded the company’s licensing offer to unspecified schools that would have seen them appearing in the publisher’s planned college basketball game.
O’Brien wasn’t shy about providing Electronic Arts’ reasoning, pointing to schools accepting rival 2K Sports’ offer as the impetus.
“Given there are some schools choosing to accept the 2K Sports proposal for inclusion in NBA 2K, the offer to be included in a college basketball video game will unfortunately have to be rescinded,” the memo reads. While the memo references NBA 2K, the schools may have actually chosen to appear in 2K’s own college basketball game, which it is also seemingly trying to get off the ground.
The language in the memo indicates the company won’t be trying to move forward with making a college basketball game. “Everyone at EA Sports is disappointed that we all couldn’t find an acceptable path forward,” the memo reads, “but we appreciate your support in trying to bring a stand-alone college basketball game with all men’s and women’s Division 1 institutions and student athletes, conferences as well as the NCAA, in a way that fans have told us they want.” According to The Athletic, EA was targeting a 2028 launch for its would-be college basketball sim.
Polygon has reached out to EA Sports regarding its college basketball plans and will update when the company responds.
This comes a year after EA successfully relaunched its college football series with EA Sports College Football 25, which became the best-selling sports game in U.S. history. EA Sports hasn’t dabbled in college basketball in a since 2009’s NCAA Basketball 10, and now it seems like its college basketball series will stay on the bench. The company hasn’t published an NBA basketball sim in some time either, as 2K dominates the space; NBA 2K25 was the fifth-best-selling game of 2024.