Reports claimed earlier this year that EA was close to agreeing a new licensing deal with the Premier League for its football series, and now, as reported by VGC, it’s been announced that the long-running deal between the two has been officially extended.

That means that EA Sports FC 24 and future titles will feature official licenses for the Premier League, as well as all of its teams, stadiums, players, kits, sponsors, and managers. Additionally, EA Sports and the Premier League will also continue to work together on community programmes like EA Sports FC Futures, which will entail school football initiatives and investment into grassroots facilities.

EA Sports FC 24 launches on September 29 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Head on over here to watch EA’s recent gameplay deep dive to learn about some of its biggest improvements to the on-pitch action.

As per a report published on Dealabs by prominent leaker billbil-kun, EA Sports FC 24 will launch on September 29. Those who purchase the Ultimate Edition will get seven days of early access, as opposed to three days for last year’s game, and will be able to access the title starting September 22.

Though not yet officially confirmed, that does align with the typical release schedule for EA’s FIFA titles, which generally tend to launch either in late September or early October. Again though, we’ll know soon enough from EA itself, so stay tuned for the official announcement.

Though the FIFA franchise is changing its branding soon, it’s certainly making that transition in a high. EA revealed earlier this year that FIFA 23 managed to surpass the lifetime sales of its predecessor in just six months. It also saw a series record 10.3 million players in its launch week.

As part of the reveal, EA is expected to unveil quite a few details about EA Sports FC, including box art, the announcement for pre-orders going live, and other details, such as potentially a look at gameplay.

Slated to be the follow up to FIFA 23, EA Sports FC will be the first game to be released in the franchise since EA’s partnership with the FIFA organisation came to an end. Back in April, a short teaser was released for EA Sports FC, which revealed the game’s logo, and its official website.

In a recent earnings call, EA revealed that its most recent football release, FIFA 23, beat its predecessor’s lifetime sales figures in just six months. The success of FIFA 23 shouldn’t be a surprise, however, as the game was already on pace to become the fastest-selling title in franchise history since at least February.

“Record live services performance and increased engagement, particularly from our EA Sports FIFA franchise, drove better-than-expected Q4 net bookings, capping a strong finish to the fiscal year,” said Chris Suh, chief financial officer Chris.

The success should be no surprise, since EA reported back in February that FIFA 23 was on pace to become the best-selling title in the franchise’s history. EA CEO Andrew Wilson stated that year-to-date net bookings had grown by 4% for the franchise year-on-year, and North America alone saw its market grow by 50%.

Even during launch, FIFA 23 was breaking records. Back in October 2022, EA revealed that the FIFA 23 launch saw a record-breaking 10.3 million players playing across all platforms in its first week alone.

The success of FIFA 23 is priming EA for its next major football title, which will be the first one released by the company to leave the FIFA branding behind. TItled EA Sports FC, the game recently got a short teaser trailer.

A short teaser has been revealed to show off the EA Sports FC logo, while an official website for the game is also now live. As per the website, the new triangular logo is “inspired by the triangles that have been part of EA SPORTS football for the past 30 years, from the isometric polygons that make up our game to the chemistry triangles that exist in Ultimate Team to the player indicator across every match.”

The website boasts that EA Sports FC will be “home to the biggest competitions, leagues, and players across the men’s and women’s game”. Licensing agreements with a number of leagues and competitions have been confirmed, including the likes of the Premier League, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Women’s Champions League, La Liga Santander, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, Serie A, CONMEBOL Libertadores, Barclays Women’s Super League, NWSL, and more.

EA Sports FC will be unveiled in full in July. Stay tuned for more updates on the game.

Join the Club https://t.co/w1dtuLclDp

We can’t wait to show you the future of football this July #EASPORTSFC pic.twitter.com/pS1fw8pFgZ

— EA SPORTS FC (@EASPORTSFC) April 6, 2023

According to Martyn Ziegler—chief sports reporter at The Times—FIFA made the decision because EA refused to pay the company a higher rate for its branding. Past reports have indicated that FIFA was demanding $2.5 billion from EA every four years for use of the license.

“The new FIFA game – the FIFA 25, 26, 27 and so on – will always be the best egame for any girl or boy,” said Infantino. “We will have news on this very soon.”

Back in May 2022, FIFA had announced that it would work with other developers and publishers to release new FIFA games in response to EA announcing that its line of football games would be titled EA Sports FC from 2023 onwards.

The last EA-published game using the FIFA license was FIFA 23, which was released back in October 2022. For more details, check out our review.

As per a report published by Sky Sports, EA Sports is close to agreeing a deal with the Premier League, the world’s biggest domestic club football competition, that will extend their existing agreement and se EA continuing to exercise exclusive licensing rights to the league.

The deal is said to be worth £488m over the course of a six-year period, delivering more than £80 million per year, and is reportedly worth twice as much as the existing agreement between EA and the Premier League.

Neither of the entities has yet made an official announcement regarding the same.

Recently, EA announced that the annual series’ last release, FIFA 23, is on track to be “the biggest title in franchise history”.

As you may have expected, the organization is going to attempt to keep moving forward without EA. In a recently published update, FIFA confirmed that it already has “number of new non-simulation games” in development with other partnered developers and publishers. One of these is described as “a tailored gaming experience featuring the biggest event on earth”, i.e. the World Cup, and will launch in Q3 of this year, ahead of the tournament, which is scheduled November and December of this year.

In addition to that, FIFA says it is now adopting a non-exclusive model that will see its yearly annual series continuing in partnership with other gaming companies. In a strongly (and bafflingly) worded statement, FIFA president Gianni Infantino has said that the FIFA series will remain the premier football sim on the market, even in the absence of EA Sports.

“I can assure you that the only authentic, real game that has the FIFA name will be the best one available for gamers and football fans,” Infantino says. “The FIFA name is the only global, original title. FIFA 23, FIFA 24, FIFA 25 and FIFA 26, and so on – the constant is the FIFA name and it will remain forever and remain THE BEST.”

Saying that making games is a difficult and complicated process would be a massive understatement, but Infantino seems to wildly underestimating the scope of that task. It will be interesting to see what publishers the organization partners with moving forward, and how that will impact the FIFA series with future instalments.

This year, at the very least, will see EA Sports’ FIFA 23 launching for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.

It seems the rumors can officially be laid to rest, as EA has announced via an official article that the company and football giant FIFA will be officially ending their long-standing partnership, and that future titles will now be called EA Sports FC, starting in 2023.

As per EA, everything which fans have experienced from the football series over the years will stay same, including the various game modes, teams, tournaments, clubs, etc. all thanks to the exclusive partnership between the Premier League, LaLiga, Bundesliga, Serie A, the MLS, and more.

“Everything you love about our games will be part of EA SPORTS FC – the same great experiences, modes, leagues, tournaments, clubs and athletes will be there. Ultimate Team, Career Mode, Pro Clubs and VOLTA Football will all be there. Our unique licensing portfolio of more than 19,000+ players, 700+ teams, 100+ stadiums and 30 leagues that we’ve continued to invest in for decades will still be there, uniquely in EA SPORTS FC. That includes exclusive partnerships with the Premier League, LaLiga, Bundesliga, Serie A, the MLS – and more to come,” said Cam Weber, EVP, Group GM EA SPORTS & Racing.

Weber further stated that, “This new independent platform will bring fresh opportunity – to innovate, create and evolve. This is much more than just a change of symbol – as EA SPORTS, we’re committed to ensuring EA SPORTS FC is a symbol of change. We’re dedicated to meaningfully reinvesting in the sport, and we’re excited to work with a large and increasing number of partners to expand to new authentic experiences that bring joy, inclusivity and immersion to a global community of fans. I look forward to sharing more detail on these plans in the coming months.”

EA also mentions that they will be delivering the most expansive game ever with FIFA later this year. “We are committed to ensuring the next FIFA is our best ever, with more features, game modes, World Cup content, clubs, leagues, competitions, and players than any FIFA title before,” Weber further added.

EA has promised more details on EA Sports FC in Summer of 2023.

In a recent episode of Giant Bomb show GrubbSnax (via ResetEra), journalist Jeff Grubb stated that EA will indeed soon be renaming its FIFA franchise. With their licensing deal expiring with this year’s game, Grubb says EA will instead rename the series as EA Sports FC (the “FC” stands for “football club”, in case you’re wondering), while FIFA will instead go ahead with its own football games- though whether they’re on the lookout for other developers to partner with remains to be seen.

If that names sounds familiar to you, that’s because last year, EA registered trademarks for EA Sports FC. 

Reports in October of last year suggested that not only was FIFA asking EA for $2.5 billion every four years to extend their agreement, but was also looking to place restrictions on in-game monetization. More recently, EA said that its FIFA license has actually precluded the company from expanding the franchise in the ways that it wants to.

How exactly would this affect EA Sport’s yearly football sim series though? Effectively, the only thing they’d be losing out on is the FIFA World Cup license itself- licensing for every other international team, club, player, and stadium that’s already in the FIFA games will remain largely unaffected. Read more on that through here.