Any Gonzaga men’s basketball fans who felt left out when EA Sports announced it was reviving its College Football video game series last year have been holding out hope that they’ll see their Bulldogs prominently featured in a similar way at some point in the future.
Those aspirations turned into feelings of anticipation on Monday, as EA Sports announced it will be coming out with a new college basketball video game series. According to Extra Points’ Matt Brown, the video game publisher is targeting a 2028 release date.
Brown also reported that the game will go by the title “EA Sports College Basketball,” after previous iterations of college basketball video games made by the publisher went by the “NCAA Basketball” name.
“In a memo sent to college conference offices from the College Licensing Company (CLC), dated June 26, 2025, CLC put out a request for proposal (RFP) to create a college basketball video game in November 2024,” Brown wrote. “According to the memo, five companies expressed formal interest, and three filed formal bids.”
There hasn’t been a standalone college basketball game featuring the Bulldogs since EA Sports’ NCAA Basketball 2010 game, which released in November 2009. Gonzaga’s brand, as well as a handful of other schools’, were featured in a limited capacity in the NBA 2K21 game, though, like the college basketball games, none of the in-game characters on the team resembled their real-life counterparts.
But with NIL’s prevalence spreading across college sports, EA Sports was able to create opportunities for student-athletes to earn compensation off its revived College Football video game series that was re-introduced last summer and will be making a return in a week when College Football 26 hits shelves July 11. That opened the door for game developers to bring real-life players into their game while using their exact name, image and likeness.
Gonzaga’s uniforms, court and fight song were included in the MyCareer game mode of NBA 2K21, which was released in September 2020, prior to the current NIL litigation. Starting this season, schools will be able to share revenue with their athletes directly as part of the terms negotiated in the House v. NCAA settlement.
