EA Sports’ reboot of its college football franchise has proven wildly successful, setting the mark as the best-selling sports game ever released in the United States market.
That’s according to Circana video game sales data from November, with College Football 25 eclipsing the previous record set by 2K Sports’ NBA 2K21. It has also entered the top 50 for best-selling tracked video games of all time, and so far is the best-selling game of 2024 across genres ahead of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
After an 11-year hiatus, the game returned with a July 19 launch for PlayStation 5 and Xbox One. In the NIL era, the game now includes players’ names and numbers.
EA Sports sent out offers to more than 14,000 players on FBS teams. Each player who opted in received a one-time payment of $600 along with a copy of the game.
“EA Sports College Football 25 was a highly anticipated title prior to launch, but just how big it would be was the question. Once initial sales rolled in, it was clear that it had a shot at becoming the No. 1 seller, then the question became when it would overtake,” Circana executive director/video games Mat Piscatella told the Sports Business Journal. “I thought it had a shot at doing that in October, but it didn’t quite get there until (November).”
