Nissan sponsoring College Football 25 tournament to win a new SUV
By Brian Allen
College Football 25 is lighting up the scoreboard like a Top 25 team playing a hapless homecoming opponent. As anybody who has watched even 10 minutes of college football over the past few years knows, Nissan is a sponsor. Their Heisman House commercials are actually humorous in a goofy way, but this year they're helping rectify a serious injustice.
Since the college football landscape has changed dramatically with NIL deals, the Heisman Trust opted to return the trophy Reggie Bush forfeited in 2010 for receiving improper benefits. During his Heisman exile USC earned scorn for not displaying his jersey, but leaving O.J. Simpson's out there.
Bush will now appear in the Heisman House commercials, and he isn't the only big return made possible by NIL deals. College Football 25 was on an 11-year hiatus as the NCAA figured out what to do about athlete pay, then EA decided on its own budget for compensation.
The minimum an athlete gets for doing a deal with CFB 25 is $600 and a copy of the game. The most marketable players can cut their own deals. As I talked about here, some are using Twitch and other social media to increase their exposure.
It made perfect sense for Nissan to play up both these returns in their ad campaign, and that's just what they're doing. Nissan is sponsoring the College Football 25 Heisman House Challenge starting in October. Players will compete to win a 2025 Nissan Kicks SUV and a key to the Heisman House.
We'll be able to watch the Heisman House Challenges Finals on EA Sports' Twitch and YouTube channels in December. I always love watching these events. It's interesting to see what kind of tricks the best players in the world come up with. Like college football, EA's game rewards creativity with all the insane trick play and eccentric offenses we see on the field.