Response from EA regarding end of College Hoops series

Yesterday when the news broke that the 2K’s College Hoops 2K9 had been canceled a lot of people jumped to the conclusion that there was an exclusive license in the works that and that EA Sports was positioning themselves for it. However with the relatively low sales of college basketball games and Take Two’s statement, which specifically did not use the word exclusive, that seemed to be an unreasonable assumption.

Today EA has responded to requests from Kotaku, who originally broke the story about the end of the College Hoops series. It seemed odd that EA would be expected to comment on a rival’s business decision but they said enough to clear the air on the situation.

2k and CLC are in the best position to comment on College Hoops. EA is in the middle of a long-term license with the CLC and we expect to stay in the college basketball category.

So the NCAA license was up for renewal and Take Two decided that it wasn’t in their best interest to pay for the rights and continue to produce College Hoops. There seems to be a misunderstanding out there that if there is no exclusive license that anyone can make a game using the rights but that isn’t the case, it just means that multiple companies have the ability to negotiate contracts for those rights. This seems to have been solely a business decision that took into consideration factors such as low sales and the current state of Take Two as had been previously suggested.