EA has offered roughly 11,000 players $600 and a free copy of the upcoming college football video game. Whether that’s fair compensation for the rights to use their names, images, and likenesses, over 10,000 have accepted the terms.
Texas quarterback Arch Manning has not, according to Anwar Richardson of OrangeBloods.com.
The word given to Richardson is that the nephew of Peyton and Eli Manning “is focused on playing football on the field.”
That’s fine. But being in a video game doesn’t undermine that focus. If so, both of his uncles would have removed themselves from the various annual versions of Madden. Also, Peyton wouldn’t have agreed to be on the cover of NFL Fever, a 2002 offering from Xbox.
It seems more likely that Arch wanted more than $600, and that EA passed. Arch doesn’t need to be in the game, and EA doesn’t currently need him in the game, since he’s not the starter at Texas.
If/when he is, EA will have an interesting decision to make — if Arch is looking to get as much value from the game as the presence of his last name would give to it.