EA teases new college basketball game, doubles down on sports to fight portfolio risk

Billion-dollar sports games publisher Electronic Arts releases a teaser for a new college basketball game, and reports signal a 2028 release.

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EA is working on a new NCAA Basketball game for the first time in 15 years. The news follows the meteoric sales success of EA's previous collegiate return to football, with College Football 25 becoming the best-selling sports video game of all time in the United States. Now EA wants to do the same with college basketball.

While EA officially confirmed the game publicly, there's been no confirmation of a launch window. Sources behind the scenes say that EA is targeting a 2028 launch for the new sports title.

The news was discovered by way of an internal memo acquired by Extra Points.

In the memo, the College Licensing Company (CLC) sent out feelers to see which video game companies were interested in making a NCAA basketball sports sim. The CLC had seen the huge success of College Football 25 and saw opportunities for more revenue with a new college basketball title.

Five companies expressed interest and three of them made bids, with EA obviously winning out.

2K Games is the only other publisher to release modern college basketball games, so it was probably among those that made a bid.

The move makes sense for Electronic Arts, especially in today's market. Its key EA Sports games division is more versed in creating action-oriented live service sports simulators, and these products may be able to be made at a lower cost than something more explosively artistic as a brand new intellectual property or a complex roleplaying game.

EA has been quite risk averse since missing on big bets as recent high-cost products like Dragon Age: The Veilguard failed to meet expectations.

This has pushed EA to double down on a few select core franchises and IPs.

As a result of its structured plan, Electronic Arts expects to make a record-breaking $8 billion in net bookings this fiscal year, driven by EA Sports, Battlefield, and Skate.