Now that college football players can get paid for their names, images, and likenesses, EA can bring back a college football game that previously tiptoed around the requirement to fairly compensate persons on whom the game was based.
As EA moves toward resurrecting the game, USC quarterback Caleb Williams believes that certain players should get more than others.
“It’s like if you go to school and you are a straight-A student and there’s another kid whose strong suit isn’t school and he gets B’s or B-minuses,” Williams told Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports. “How fair would it be if you get the same grade as him? That never works in school and it doesn’t make sense. That’s how I look at that game with the situation with the $500.”
EA has not confirmed that players will be offered $500 across the board, regardless of who they are or what they do. Whatever the eventual plan, Williams believes it should not be a set number for each player.
“It depends on who you are and your situation and if you earned it,” Williams said of the amount to be paid. “There’s certain people that have been in college for many years and been playing for many years, and there’s other guys who have been in college for many years and haven’t played and haven’t been doing this and that. It depends on your situation and who you are and what you have actually earned. I’m not talking about money earned. . . . I’m talking about all the hard work you’ve put in.”
He’s absolutely right. The better players, the more prominent and popular ones, should get more money. And it’s a number that each player should individually negotiate with EA. In theory, EA might not be willing or able to pay the money necessary to get enough actual players to make the game viable.
“I’d love to have the game back, but it’s the new day and age and everybody knows what the new day and age in college is,” Williams said.
Indeed it is. And it’s long overdue. Williams gets it, and he has every right to try to get whatever he deserves.
