Michigan CB Will Johnson, RB Donovan Edwards sign NIL deals, endorse EA Sports 2025 college football video game
Michigan Wolverines football junior cornerback Will Johnson and senior running back Donovan Edwards are “in the game.” Johnson, the defensive MVP of the national championship game and a first-team All-American by Sports Illustrated, and Edwards, the Wolverines’ top ball-carrier heading into 2024, have signed NIL deals with EA Sports to promote the 2025 College Football video game that will be released this summer.
Johnson and Edwards each posted on his Instagram accounts a graphic endorsing the video game.
According to On3, all 134 FBS teams have opted in to be featured in the game. Players, including Johnson and Edwards, can “opt in” for their name, image and likeness to appear in the video game. Athletes that do so are expected to receive $600 and a copy of the game. However, as a premier player, Johnson’s deal goes beyond that.
“Those deals are not $600, rather each agreement is different and based off the athlete’s NIL value — basically, a negotiated marketing deal,” On3’s Pete Nakos wrote. “A source has told On3 that a list of 100 priority athletes has been pieced together the last few weeks ahead of Thursday’s announcement. With a pre-approved budget, this is just Phase 1 of EA’s marketing rollout.”
On3’s Andy Staples explained further how the rest of the model with involving players will work.
“EA Sports has announced the opt-in program for players to be in the game — the real players,” Staples said on his podcast. “You don’t have to download a roster where somebody put the names in. There won’t be fake names; these will be the guys!
“They have to opt in, and it’s a group situation. If you opt in, you get $600 and a copy of the game, which, for most of the players, is going to be just fine. In fact, most of the players would just take a copy of the game, and to be in the game. They’re going to do about 85 players on each roster, basically the number of scholarship players on each roster, and it’s going to be the real guys. Now, they’ve got to download an app and fill a form out to get this.
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“If you’re a superstar and you don’t opt in, EA is going to talk to you and probably cut a deal with you. But they don’t have to. But I think most people will opt in. If you look at it, it’s going to be about $6.5 million that EA is going to pay out on this thing, and you get real names. And if you think about what EA makes on the game, it’s a drop in the bucket. EA was all fine with this — EA always wanted to do this — but the NCAA wouldn’t allow it.”
Until now, of course. It hasn’t been released who the cover athlete will be, but it could be a Michigan player, given the Wolverines won the national championship with a 15-0 campaign last season. The last cover athlete of the most recent version of the game in 2014 was Denard Robinson, former Michigan quarterback and current U-M support staffer.
With over 77,000 total followers on social media, Johnson has an On3 NIL Valuation of $763,000, which includes both brand value and roster value. That ranks 34th in college football. On3 sets annual NIL valuations for both high school and college athletes based on a proprietary algorithm that takes into account three main categories unique to each athlete — performance, influence, and exposure.
