[UPDATE] Southeastern Conference joins NCAA in ending business relationship with publisher for college football games; Pac-12 and Big Ten also out.
[UPDATE] Following the publication of this story, ESPN amended its story to include the Pac-12 and Big Ten as conferences ending their relationships with EA Sports as well.
The original story is below.
The Southeastern Conference (SEC), considered to be the most powerful conference in college football, has ended its business relationship with EA Sports and will not license its trademarks for the publisher’s college football series going forward.
The announcement comes about one month after the NCAA ended its relationship with EA Sports, saying it would not license its symbols and trademarks for college football games in the future.
Similar to the NCAA, the SEC noted in a statement today (via ESPN), that its member schools can make their own decisions about whether or not they wish to participate in new games.
“Each school makes its own individual decision regarding whether or not to license their trademarks for use in the EA Sports game(s),” the SEC said. “The Southeastern Conference has chosen not to do so moving forward. Neither the SEC, its member universities, nor the NCAA have ever licensed the right to use the name or likeness of any student to EA Sports.”
This means SEC logos and the SEC Championship game will no longer appear in EA Sports’ college football games. The conference’s schools–like Alabama, LSU, and Florida–can still appear in the games if they choose to.
EA Sports recently signed a new deal with the College Licensing Company that gives the publisher the rights to use more than 150 colleges, conferences, and bowl games” in its franchise. It remains unclear if any schools have chosen not to participate.
EA is currently developing a new college football game for next-generation platforms the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, though details on the game have not been announced.
NCAA Football 14 launched last month for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
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