During my time working at GameStop, no game got more hype than College Football 25. My home county of Fairfax in Northern Virginia has the fifth highest percentage of individuals with bachelors degrees at 64.1%. I myself was working between semesters at the University of Maryland. So you can imagine that there was a huge market for the game where I was working. Every shift, at least three people would ask if the game was out yet (instead of googling when the game came out) and the store could reliably get a few preorders for the game each week.

And with $500 million dollars in sales in the first week, it was clear that my town of preppy college snobs was far from the only part of America that was enamored with the NCAA’s return to game consoles. It had been over ten years to that point since the last release of a college football game. The issue of player compensation had grown to the point that EA stopped making all NCAA sports games. In recent years, however, new rules in the NCAA have allowed players to make money on their names, images and likenesses, allowing EA to make deals with players and making College Football 25 possible.

College Football 25 was proof that there is a potent market for college sports games. So why stop at college football? In February and March, the same people who were champing at the bit to pick up a copy of College Football 25 fill out March Madness brackets and crowd around the dining hall televisions for college basketball season. The exact same people who bought the college football game would jump at the chance to pick up the first copy of a college basketball game in nearly 15 years.

Not only would a new college basketball game sell just as well as College Football 25, it also provides EA with an opportunity to regain a foothold in the basketball video game scene. EA has almost no presence in the basketball video game market, especially when compared to 2K. EA has the NBA Live mobile game, which presumably has moderate success, but the NBA 2K series is the premiere basketball series, so popular that EA has made no attempt to release a competing series. Were EA to beat 2K to the punch with a college basketball game, it could foster trust among basketball fans in EA to make an NBA game. In effect, EA could create two new revenue streams with a successful college basketball game.

It is true that unlike NCAA Football, the college basketball series of games from both EA and 2K ceased production largely due to a lack of sales. But as Las Vegas Raiders fans learned with Derek Carr, absence makes the heart grow fonder. The college sports landscape is vastly different today than it was in 2009, with fans becoming more connected with athletes than ever before and sports games as a whole being more popular than at any point in video game history. The time to take advantage of college sports popularity is now. Previous sales woes have little relevance in today’s video game market, and EA has built a base of future customers who would be willing to purchase more college sports games.

A new college basketball game could very well be in the works at the moment. EA announced that a new college football game almost as soon as the new NIL regulations went into effect in the NCAA, and the game took a few years to develop. It is possible that EA is waiting to announce a game and make deals with players until they can determine an identity for a new college basketball game, complete with original game mechanics and presentation styles. Until then, we can only dream of once again playing out March Madness in our own living rooms.