Mentions of College Football During EA Q4 FY25 Conference Call
During the Electronic Arts Q4 2025 Earnings Conference Call on Tuesday, the EA SPORTS College Football franchise was highlighted several times, namely for the success of CFB 25. The majority of game-related discussion centered on the financial success of the title and company, though one quote did hint at something eventually coming to CFB & Madden. Courtesy EA CEO and Chairman of the Board Andrew Wilson's prepared remarks: "Looking ahead, our deeper integration between Madden NFL and College Football is setting the stage for a unified massive online community."
What could this 'unified massive online community' be? Some in the community have speculated that it would be an open world experience similar to that found in NBA 2K.
Last fall, EA SPORTS President Cam Weber presented a look ahead of an open world technology that could be coming to EA SPORTS FC and to the American Football franchises 'in the years ahead.' However, the idea presented fell flat among the reddit/NCAAFBSeries community.
Continue on to see each relevant mention of EA CFB during the conference call.
Prepared Remarks
Wilson: Q4 was a strong finish to an incredible year for our American Football ecosystem. Players across Madden NFL and College Football across console and PC grew double digits and
hours played were up 68%, leading to net bookings of over $1 billion dollars — up over 70% year over year.
This quarter, American Football continued to perform well-beyond the College season-ending national championship in January and the Super Bowl in February.
Post-season engagement and monetization continue to play a more meaningful role as players and fans look to us for their sports entertainment in the off-season. For example,
the recent NFL Draft was a prime opportunity to continue to connect Madden NFL and College Football through high value, timely content to generate ongoing engagement,
connect with our fans three hundred sixty five days a year, and drive player retention as we head into the next fiscal year.
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We also believe there are more record years to come for EA SPORTS. The immense opportunity around our global football and American football franchises is that these real live sports are growing in popularity every year, giving us an inherent multiplier of the total addressable market.
Across FC, Madden NFL, and College Football, we will continue to focus on our unrivaled core gameplay through innovation and bold moves, like the recent acquisition of TRACAB,
that we expect to progress how we deliver more authentic, immersive gameplay than ever before. As we look to expand our audiences, we will use this data to build new ways to play,
more ways to connect, and empower our players with new tools to create and share.
Over the next several years you should expect more milestone moments as we work to engage all football fans through EA SPORTS FC, Madden NFL and College Football. Our
relaunch of College Football 25 was only the first step in this multi-year growth strategy for American Football. For example, this experience grew our audience by adding over five
million new fans to the ecosystem. Looking ahead, our deeper integration between Madden NFL and College Football is setting the stage for a unified massive online community.
Our American Football ecosystem is following the playbook of our hugely successful Global Football franchise — positioning it for long-term success.
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Canfield: Full game net bookings was $2.02 billion, up 1%, driven by strength in EA SPORTS College Football 25 and new blockbuster releases including Split Fiction and Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which offset prior-year contributions from Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and softness in FC 25 full game sales.
[FY25 results] Live services net bookings was $5.34 billion, down 2%, reflecting an approximate four point headwind from Apex Legends in addition to an approximate three point headwind from the December and January softness in FC Ultimate Team. These headwinds were partially offset by the strength of American Football.
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[Q4 performance] Live services and other net bookings were $1.42 billion, up 1%, exceeding our revised guidance on the strength in FC Ultimate Team, College Football Ultimate Team, and The Sims.
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In American Football, late cycle engagement trends remained strong in the ecosystem, with the Q4 average for Weekly Active Users higher than the fiscal year average. In the quarter, College Football Ultimate Team significantly outperformed, with Average Net Bookings Per Spender more than 50% above expectations, driven by high-impact content drops like Rewind and Names of the Game. Madden NFL 25 acquisition also exceeded our expectations driven by expanded platform reach as well as strong late holiday demand for the title relative to prior quarters.
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Q&A
Doug Creutz - TD Cowen - Analyst
I just wondering if you could talk a bit about how to think about American Football in the coming year. Obviously, College football '25 you had a
huge amount of pent-up demand, and that could create a tough comp depending on a lot of things. But just how are you guys thinking about the
puts and takes for that franchise fiscal year and how to think about potential growth?
Andrew Wilson - Electronic Arts Inc - Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. I'll start just in terms of an overarching strategy for American football, and then I'll let Stuart kind of lean into more in the forecast and
projection. The good news for us is American Football in the context of both NFL and college continues to grow in both fandom and engagement
broadly.
And so our expectation is that overall, the sports will grow and typically where we deliver in line with fans expectations, we have the benefit of
that growth and that acts as a multiplier for us. And we certainly expect that in the context of American football on a go-forward basis. We have a
big ambition around building the largest football community in this country and really being a leading digital football fan platform through
interactive entertainment.
The launch of College Football in this past year was just the first step. And again, I acknowledge that there was almost certainly pent-up demand,
having not launched the franchise for 10 years. But I'd also say, given the quality of the game that our team built, given the level of engagement
that we had from the fan base, those fans don't love college football any less this year than they did last year.
And certainly, as we look forward now to building much deeper connection between college and the NFL product this year and then building out
much bigger social ecosystems around the combined franchise in future years, our expectation that we will continue to grow this business in line
with the growth of the sport and benefit from the ongoing uptake of young fans with interactive entertainment.
Stuart Canfield - Electronic Arts Inc - Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President
And Doug, to your second part of your question, you should think that we've been pretty prudent and balanced for many of the reasons that kind
of you outlined and Andrew built on. We know, obviously, last year was a record year. It's absolutely a tough comp. And we would expect that Q2
likely could be a tougher comp base on the pent-up demand for College Football as well.
We also expect to continue to build on learnings given it's year two, how do we see the mix play out between the titles, how do we think about
the incredible service that we saw continue for College and the opportunity for that next year. So overall, in the guidance, as is general across the
entire guidance for the fiscal year, we've been pretty pragmatic and balanced. To Andrew's point expectations, both this year and beyond continue
to drive growth through this franchise.
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James Heaney - Jefferies - Analyst
That's helpful. And then, Andrew, could you just talk about how you're planning to market Madden versus CFP this year along with the MVP bundle?
Just interested to hear your perspective on how important overall bundling is for your sports strategy going forward.
Andrew Wilson - Electronic Arts Inc - Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer
I think what we recognize is that there is a great many fans who love both College Football and the NFL and this is an opportunity for them to
participate in both. It was a very successful bundle last season. At one time, it was one of the most -- we had Madden in the top 10, and we had
College and we had the bundle. Our expectation is that this year, there will also be a number of players, maybe even more players that choose to
jump into both college and the NFL, and we will look to provide that opportunity for our player base.
Otherwise, we'll continue to drive Madden, we'll continue to drive College. But remember, the biggest part of our overarching strategy here is to
build out the largest American football fan community in this country and be the leading digital football fan platform, and we believe we can do
that through college football, through Madden and through the ongoing social ecosystem we built around those two franchises that make it make
even more sense for our player base to play both even if they aren't currently thinking about doing so.
***
Wilson: Well, thank you all for joining us today and for your thoughtful questions. As we wrap FY25, this year stands out as a powerful reflection of our
momentum and connection with players. The success of College Football and the continued strength of FC drove another record year for EA Sports.
The Sims closed the year with its strongest ever performance, reaffirming its place as a cultural icon and a vibrant platform for creativity and
community.
With a robust pipeline, we see the next two years as an important inflection point for our business. We couldn't be more excited about what we're
building towards and our position for growth. Thanks again. We look forward to speaking next quarter.
