Illinois football made its triumphant return to video games last season with the release of College Football 25.
It had been over a decade since fans could play as the Illini in a video game. That all changed with the ability for players to make money through Name, Image, and Likeness.
Well, in the first edition of the game in the 2020s, College Football 25 assigned tiers to programs to determine the value they would earn from the video game. According to an article from Matt Liberman of Cllct, every team that opted into the game last year was given a tier.
There were four tiers. The game slotted each program into a tier based on the past 10 years of play. For each season you finished in the AP Top 25, you get a point. Tier 1 was 6-10 points ($99,875.16), tier 2 was 2-5 points ($59,925.09), tier 3 was 1 point ($39,950.06), and tier 4 was 0 points ($9,987.52).
Where did Illinois get slotted? Tier 1, obviously. We didn’t finish a single season from 2014 through 2023 in the AP Top 25. That means Illinois only received $9,987.52 from the first installment of the new game.
Past failed coaches have hindered Illinois football in the NIL department
It is kind of a gut punch to know that the past coaches at Illinois affected the future of the program when it comes to NIL dollars.
I know the past coaches affected the program with a lack of success and the inability to recruit. That was a given. That was also being corrected by the Bret Bielema regime in Champaign. But losing out on all of those NIL dollars is brutal.
If Illinois had just finished in the AP Top 25 once from 2014 to 2023, the program would have made $30,000 more in NIL money. That could have potentially been the difference between landing a game-changing player or not. Thankfully, the structure is changing, and Illinois is on the rise, so this should never happen again.