The return of EA Sports’ NCAA franchise with “College Football 25” has triggered plenty of fan interest, including among the ranks of professional football players.
Kansas City Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes is definitely one of those players.
The reigning Super Bowl MVP revealed to reporters Tuesday that he had brought a television with him to Chiefs training camp for the first time in his eight-year NFL career. The reason why is two-fold: to watch the 2024 Olympics in Paris and play “College Football 25.”
Via KCTV5’s Jared Koller:
“This is my first year I’m bringing a TV. I haven’t brought a TV ever before, but NCAA came out and I’m going to have to turn it on. I brought a TV for NCAA and the Oympics, that’s my first year ever doing that.”
Mahomes is well known as a video game fan, especially in the Chiefs locker room.
“College Football 25” is the revival of the long-dormant “NCAA” series for EA Sports, made possible by the Supreme Court’s NCAA v. Alston decision that opened the door for the NIL era. The previous incarnation of the series was “NCAA Football 14,” released in 2013.
So far, fans seem to be showing their interest in the series never waned. The early access version of the game, accessible to players who paid for the $100 Deluxe Edition or the $150 MVP Bundle with “Madden NFL 25,” has reportedly seen a peak of over 700,000 concurrent players.
That number would make it among the top-selling video games of the year, with the standard edition masses still waiting to get their hands on it.