Two of college football’s top programs stand to make a lot of money with the introduction of the new EA College Football video game. Alabama and Ohio State football are among the top earners from the EA College Football 25 game, according to Action Network.
How much each school earns from EA Sports College Football 25 based on final AP Poll rankings last decade via @cllctMedia. All 134 FBS schools split into 4 tiers
Tier 1: $99,875.16
Tier 2: $59,925.09
Tier 3: $39,950.06
Tier 4: $9,987.52 pic.twitter.com/hHxAybWBW1— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) May 24, 2024
Alabama and Ohio State are among the top colleges, with profits of around $100,000 each. Other top-tier schools include Clemson, Notre Dame, and Oklahoma, among others. Action Network posted the whole list, including a breakdown of each tier. There are 13 first-tier teams, all from power five conferences.
Action Network lists four tiers. The largest is the fourth tier, which includes some power 5 college football programs but largely group of five programs. The fourth-tier institutions are earning close to $10,000 each from the game.
The EA College Football game will return this summer after a long hiatus from retail shelves. The game’s release has already generated a lot of buzz, with basketball great LeBron James and others commenting on it. James intends to play for the Ohio State football team, which may have boosted the school’s tier ranking. The game’s trailer received hundreds of thousands of YouTube views in just a few days.
While the first-tier teams receive the most money, every Division I college football program in the country receives a share of the proceeds. The second-tier colleges, which include USC and Florida State, earn around $60,000 each. The third-tier schools receive about $40,000. Iowa State and Syracuse are both third-tier colleges.
Why Alabama and Ohio State football lead the list
Being good pays off, as Alabama and Ohio State football have discovered. The EA College Football tier list was constructed based on all teams’ performance in the Associated Press Poll over the previous decade. The higher the tier in which a school is listed, the better its AP poll performance. The Crimson Tide and the Buckeyes did the best, thus they are receiving some of the biggest money.
Both programs are among the best in college football. Alabama football has advanced to the college football national championship game six times in the last decade, all under previous coach Nick Saban. Saban retired following the 2023 season, having won six national championships in Tuscaloosa. He also had a championship at LSU.
Ohio State football has also seen a lot of success in recent years. The Buckeyes have not won a national championship since 2014, but they have made the College Football Playoff four times in the last ten years and were a national title finalist in 2020.
