Operation Sports Newsletter #1 - Not Just Another Roster Update

Hey everyone, Chase and Steve here just letting you know you’re getting this e-mail/newsletter because you opted into admin e-mails from Operation Sports. If you’re not interested in receiving this once-a-week newsletter (and to be clear, this is the only thing we’ll send to your e-mail) feel free to opt-out by clicking here or using the link in the footer.

That said, we hope you choose to stick around because we’re excited to bring back the OS newsletter (we’re calling it Not Just Another Roster Update this time around), something some of the old-timers might remember we did many moons ago. This newsletter will be about catching you up on any sports gaming news you missed from the past week, letting you know about hot topics on the OS forums, and listening to your feedback to shape it even further from there. 

With that out of the way, let’s get to it.

And We’re Back

Welcome to the first edition of Not Just Another Roster Update, the new Operation Sports newsletter. It’s been a surreal last couple weeks on OS, and for me, this newsletter really just adds to it all. I’m not sure what the right term is for nostalgia ramming into present-day realities, but I’ll call it nostalgiality because NCAA Football returning in the form of EA Sports College Football 25 really has stirred up so many memories while smashing me in the face with the surrealness of it all.

I never really thought the day would come when we’d have a college football game on the calendar again. Seeing a series like Tiger Woods come back as EA Sports PGA Tour (or now seeing Skate on the horizon) is one thing, but this is a whole different situation. Lawsuits and the realities of college athletics did not end other sports games. The end of something like NBA Live was ultimately a business decision. Even college basketball games like College Hoops 2K ended for business reasons. NCAA Football maybe didn’t return earlier for business reasons (what would have been the viability of a college game with no teams or players?) but it was a highly successful franchise that was “taken” from us.

But now, 10+ years later, we’re back. And in some ways it’s like we’ve never missed a beat, which is what’s giving me that nostalgiality. I see people like BigWill (someone I remember from not just OS but MaddenMania) heading up a countdown thread to release day. I see members like ODogg still chugging along on the forums, and even older legends like Fairdale Kings reviving himself and posting tons of new stuff. It’s all so weird and wonderful.

For me, as a kid, NCAA Football defined summer vacation. I would go on OS and read post after post during the day when it was too hot to do anything else, and I absolutely stalked the “who’s got it, where is it, when will we get it” threads even knowing I would never partake because, well, I couldn’t drive yet. Even so, it was fun to just be in the chaos, reading through the excitement and despair while enjoying hilarious stories about people interacting with random employees and ultimately trying to trick them into selling NCAA Football early. Those threads were basically 97% about striking out, but everyone would shoot their shot and dust themselves off and try again. That’s insanity, that’s passion, that’s OS baby.

It’s also a testament to all of you who kept the dream alive and college football in people’s minds in the years since those memories formed. Everything from community rosters from the likes of vikesfan and company, to everyone behind College Football Revamped, to folks who kept updated sliders, to bwburke’s Conference Realignment guide, to those who still post pictures in the Photographic Side of NCAA Football 14 thread. It all mattered. Yes, it was always going to come down to licensing being workable again, but I firmly believe EA would not have tried something that was potentially this risky if they didn’t feel the obvious passion that existed in places like our community. 

So now we’re here, and we’re days away from EA Sports College Football 25, and I’m a teenager all over again.

Prepping For Launch

In the future, this newsletter won’t just be about EA Sports College Football 25, and we’ll have a more robust news section and community section, but this is a special case in many ways. 

If you somehow have not been following the news for EASCF25, I do want to let you know we have a full primer for it that will link you to most everything you need to know. It’s not too late to pre-order if you want, and you’ll still have a chance to get into early access on either Monday at 4 p.m. EST or Tuesday around midnight. Those two times have been kicking around because the Microsoft Store does list July 15 at 4 p.m. as the time you can start playing for those who have pre-installed the game, but the 10-hour EA Play trial still seems to begin on July 16. Regardless, it’s all happening very soon.

The other big news from this week was the reveal of NBA 2K25. There is not a ton of info as of yet, but we are getting the current-gen engine on PC this year (finally!). The game will launch on September 6, and you can see the four versions that will be releasing, so we’re going to be speeding into a busy sports season with Madden, and NBA 2K, and NHL, and EA Sports FC as usual. I hope NBA 2K brings something new to the table this year that’s not just another Eras starting point. I think it’s time to basically let us start “an era” at any point. If I want to start things up right at the Anthony Bennett 2013 NBA Draft and try to make him a Cavs icon, we should be able to do that. If that doesn’t happen, then fair enough, I’m still very hopeful for what modders will be doing on PC this year.

Are We Overhyping This Game?

Uhhhhh yeah, and that’s okay! I saw the “Are We Overhyping College Football 25” thread from OS user dylanrocks83 around the same time that OS user thescoop posted “The excitement in these forums are at an all time high” thread (thescoop has also been crushing it with putting together potential dynasty mode teams to use in various threads). And you know what, it’s okay to be excited for things. Being pessimistic about everything is exhausting. It doesn’t mean you have to look the other way or pretend there won’t be issues, but this generation of sports games has not had many amazing highs. It’s felt like a holding pattern for many franchises, and so I think some people either don’t want to have their hearts broken or just don’t want to turn into jilted fans all over again.

But look, this is OS, we’re going to go through the usual cycle. The hype will be crazy pre-launch, and then the bloom will come off the rose a little bit as we get into the actual release. I’ve already seen it start a bit with some peeps frustrated about not being able to edit numbers or recruiting being “too easy” and so on. We’re still going to be who we are, and complaining is easy to do, so we’ll still have plenty of threads that have negativity to them. And that’s okay as well. The “nature is healing” meme is true here in that sense. We need to have a little bit of everything to make it feel real.

Either way, we shouldn’t be afraid to “overhype” something when it’s obviously not vaporware or not a full game. This excitement comes from not having college football games for over a decade, but it’s also because this clearly does feel like a different sort of EA game. The passion oozes off every official video and blog they put out to a degree that even the most negative person would have a very hard time refuting that fact. EA has earned this hype (for once!). We can be a tough crowd on OS, but I think we’re generally fair and part of being fair means showing a wide range of emotions and being able to be at 0 or 10 on the criticism scale.

So as I sign off, I want to say to enjoy that excitement. I love having this feeling again about a sports game, and even if I end up “disappointed” in some things in the final release, I’ll still be stoked that I got to feel this rush all over again. Embrace the nostalgiality.

-Chase