When my boss, Austin Karp, told me about Lego and Nike's deal for co-branded products, content and experiences, I smiled, thinking about a Lego MLB or NFL game. The Lego Star Wars and other branded video games are a hoot, and I bet it'd be fun building a sports game for Lego from the ground up!
EA Sports College Football 25 is already the best-selling game of 2024
Industry watchers expected EA Sports College Football 25 to score a TD on the opening kickoff, and it debuted at the No. 1 spot in tracking firm Circana’s July report. Not only did it smash expectations -- including those of EA executives such as Cam Weber -- and previous sales numbers for a college football game, but it’s also the best-selling game of the year.
“It was above my expectations, although it was a tough one to try and predict,” said Circana Executive Director/Video Games Mat Piscatella. “I was expecting it to debut as the biggest college football game in a launch month, but I did not expect it to more than triple the lifetime dollar sales of the previous best-selling game [NCAA Football 07]. It certainly seemed to have mass appeal and generate quite a bit of excitement, even among lapsed console players.”
EA Sports’ MVP Bundle -- a package of College Football 25 and Madden NFL 25 (which debuted Friday) -- came in second. It's the first time EA has bundled pro and college football together. This is interesting, because it shows players essentially preordering Madden with their copy of College Football 25. Madden can import College Football’s Road to Glory player into its Superstar mode, so it’ll be interesting to see if this leads to future bundles of sports games.
For other sports games, MLB: The Show 24 fell one spot to eighth in July, but it’s continuing to perform strong late in the big-league season. EA Sports FC 24 held serve at No. 9, another strong showing considering that the 2025 release is coming on Sept. 27. UFC 5 dropped one spot to No. 17.
Is EA’s college football title lifting Madden?
Piscatella cited his company’s Player Engagement Tracker data, which shows only 45% of EA Sports College Football 25 players have also played Madden NFL 24 during the first three months of its release. “While that is a pretty high crossover play rate, generally speaking, it's not an extreme one,” he noted. “In fact, a higher percentage of EA Sports College Football 25 players played Call of Duty than did Madden NFL 24. Perhaps a good portion of the EA Sports College Football 25 player base won't likely be hopping over to Madden NFL. But again, we'll have to wait and see. It's a very different gaming landscape that what was in place the last time an NCAA Football game released.”
Circana’s data provides a snapshot of the video game market, one that provides useful information as long as it’s in context. The report doesn’t include digital sales for certain games, such as MLB: The Show on Nintendo and Xbox, and it doesn’t include in-game transactions, which fuel annual sports releases like EA Sports FC and free-to-play games such as Fortnite and Roblox .
Coca-Cola sees marketing opportunity within EA Sports College Football 25
Coca-Cola is expanding its Coke Zero Sugar brand’s “Best Coke Ever?” campaign into video games, sponsoring EA Sports College Football 25.
The most significant part of this deal is Coke Zero Sugar becoming the CPG sponsor of College Football 25, which in a little more than a month on the market is already the best-selling game of the year. It’ll be part of College Ultimate Team, the mode in which players earn or buy digital packs of cards to add players to their teams. This is the first time Coca-Cola has sponsored in-game transactions. As part of the sponsorship, special Ultimate Team packs carry Coke Zero Sugar branding in five content drops beginning this week (with the others coming every three-four weeks). To get these exclusive packs, players visit the Coke Zero Sugar/EA Sports College Football 25 Hub to scan a can or bottle to unlock the packs.
The sponsorship extends to on-campus activities as part of Coca-Cola's “Fan Work is Thirsty Work Tour.” This will come to 14 of the brand’s partner campuses during the season, offering samples fo Coke Zero Sugar and game nights in which students can play College Football 25 and create custom Ultimate Fan Cards for the game.
WPP Open X created the campaign for Coca-Cola, with VML taking a lead role with support from Ogilvy, EssenceMediacom, Taxi, Hogarth, Zeno, Momentum and Razorfish.
Analyzing Riot Games’ latest executive moves
Riot Games recently tinkered with its executive structure and studios , promoting Esports President John Needham to president/publishing and esports, where he will lead the creation of studios for animation and film and TV projects.
The move is a sign that scripted programming, like Netflix’s “Arcane” anime series that is based on Riot’s League of Legends title, is working. And it comes at a time when publishers like Riot and others are dealing with churn and other tough competition in the free-to-play video game market.
Riot positions this as a way to “better connect our around-game content with the games themselves.” This includes Riot’s esports and publishing teams, which will “create new integrated experiences that combine all of our esports, music, and creative publishing efforts.”
Bill Hunt, a gaming analyst with SBJ’s sister company, Newzoo, thinks the live action plan for Riot is the biggest piece of news. “I don't believe we've heard much about Riot pushing toward live action using their IP,” he noted. “This will be a more explicit mass-media play in the same vein as ‘Arcane.’”
Hunt also likes Riot’s moves within animation and music. “Bringing this in-house builds a pipeline of talent, an incredible, integrated repository of assets and reduces costs,” said Hunt on the animation efforts. “Music has been at the core of many of Riot's promotional activities over the last 10 years.”
What’s the goal here? Hunt said that “bringing this all together under one unit to combine ‘publishing, esports, international, platform technology and music’ means that Riot is committing heavily to a long-term, in-house approach to their media and marketing, doubling down on what has already been successful.”
John Buffone, VP at tracking firm Circana and an industry adviser, spoke to me about how well “Arcane” has done up against other video game-inspired fare on Netflix. Based on hours watched for the first season during their first 91 days on Netflix, “Arcane” came in third behind “The Witcher” and “Resident Evil” (two live-action series compared to the animated “Arcane”). Buffone also noted “Arcane” had 65.6 million hours of viewership in its first 91 days on the platform.
Speed reads
- EA is “bringing hockey intelligence” with EA Sports NHL 25, which debuts on consoles on Oct 4., notes GamesBeat. The game debuts on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and it’s powered by ICE-Q, which “aims to give players the time and space to control every inch of the ice, delivering an authentic experience that replicates the NHL’s elite talent.”
- It's launch day for Tiebreak: Official game of the ATP and WTA, a tennis sim for PlayStation and Xbox consoles and the Steam PC gaming platform (it's coming to the Switch at a later date). A competitor to 2K Sports' resurrected Top Spin series, Tiebreak features over 120 players and a mode dedicated to the big moments of Rafael Nadal's career. It's from Big Ant Studios, who's no stranger to tennis games. It developed AO Tennis and Tennis World Tour for Nacon, which is also publishing Tiebreak.
- This is a big partnership in esports data infrastructure -- data services provider Bayes Esports is working with Genius Sports to boost its capabilities for live match data and other services and products for competitive gaming. Bayes will also offer Genuis Sports' products as well.
- DHL and ESL FaceIt Group inked a multiyear extension of an existing deal. The two sides first partnered six years ago and have collaborated on fan experiences for Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 tournaments through joint campaigns and event logistics. As the Official Logistics Partner, DHL will expand its involvement with the Snapdragon Pro Series, the world’s largest multigame mobile esports league.
- The makers of Football, Tactics & Glory, a unique blend of soccer management sim and turn-based tactics game, announced that it's now sold over 100,000 copies in six years on the market, a strong performance for an indie game with little fanfare or marketing. Football, Tactics & Glory comes from Ukrainian studio Creoteam, which has managed to support the game despite Russia's invasion of Ukraine.