The Unofficial 2025 Sports Game Awards

I hope everyone had a good New Year’s and got to watch some CFP action yesterday. I’m still getting over what I watched at the end of that Georgia game.

That said, we have some unfinished business to wrap up today before we can start looking ahead to 2026.

I’m talking of course about the (un)Official 2025 Sports Game Awards. No panel is needed for these, I’ve got this all on my own.

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While Mario Kart World may be the official sports game of the year, I’m here to give out the real awards (see: not real).

In between putting together oodles of Transfer Portal targets in CFB 26, I was thinking a lot about sports games from 2025 and how little I get worked up about awards at this point. With sports games, it’s such a small pool in terms of “major” games that come out that awards really shouldn’t be “the goal” so to speak.

And even if it were not a small bucket of games, should awards really matter for sports games? Maybe there’s a universe where they’re talked about as “games of the year” but even the highest highs of stuff like NBA 2K11 didn’t get them in that convo. So what’s really the point of awards for sports games?

Sports games will never get the “respect” at that level even when they reach it, so why chase it? Plus, the major sports games are treated more like “forever” games like Fortnite now anyway more than as individual releases.

In many ways, even if I don’t think yearly sports games are DLC, I’d almost approach a “game of the year” discussion for them more like that. Some years DLC content is kind of butt and there’s not enough quality choices to give out an award — so you don’t. Other years you get an Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC that fights for game of the year awards.

But I don’t need to litigate that sort of idea on a grander scale right now, this is more about having some fun during the end of my vacation, so let’s get to the awards.

The CFP Bye Week Award Goes To…

Different gameplay styles as a selling point

You think you want that bye week, but then you’re getting belt to ass and losing a laugher to Miami while your Just For Men beard juice is dripping down your neck.

We were up to 0-6 for the bye week teams in the CFP era until Indiana and Curt Cignetti finally got the higher seeds in the win column. However, Curt is built different — though I already knew that because have you seen that guy chew gum? Dude is always enthusiastically munching on a huge wad of gum. Cows envy his noshing ability, and so while my jaw might hurt watching him on the sidelines, he might just be a coaching terminator who isn’t capable of jaw pain.

But for sports gamers, are we sure we want different gameplay styles? EA FC introduced them this year. They’ve been in Madden and NBA 2K previously, and what exactly have they solved?

They’re not net negatives, and the CFP bye shouldn’t be either, but are they really helping all that much? I think what we had in our minds when this stuff started is the devs would have control over cultivating experiences that were different enough that multiple audiences would be happy.

That has not happened. They’re not “glorified sliders” in every game they’ve been attempted, but they’re not far off either. We hoped there would be more control, and it does seem like Madden has a bit more control than an EA FC does over what’s changing, but it’s not been a huge deal to this point.

Now, we love sliders, and we know how much they can help create better playing games, but they’re not magic elixirs. The chances are if you don’t like the “base” game to some extent, sliders won’t fix it.

I’m of the belief that it’s hard enough to make one good game, so trying to make two is a tall task. Even if audiences want different things from a sports game, this is not a new problem. “Sim” vs. “arcade” has been a battle waged for gaming millennia at this point, but a good/fun game will unite people enough to at least create a long-lasting truce.

YOU BLEW IT Award Goes To…

Rematch

This could have gone to Skate as well, but I think Rematch was closer to something that could have lasted. Neither game is “dead” as of now and each has a chance to rise from the ashes, but it feels like an opportunity has been squandered.

Whichever one you point to, they were both looking to create experiences and business models that are rare right now in the mid-budget sports world.

Rematch is the more baffling slip up to me because if they just delay the game until cross-platform play is ready and launch with it, I think they’re in a much better spot today.

Instead, the game is free on Game Pass, but also you can buy it on Steam — but can’t play together even when on PC. There are bigger balancing issues and a lack of content that end up cropping up in the months after, but Rematch was really fun and was very obviously hitting early on in a way even Skate did not before running into the same balancing/content problems.

Then it took almost two months for cross-play to come out, and the moment had passed.

Rematch was never going to be a game for everyone — compared to Rocket League, its initial learning curve is even more pronounced — but I think it could have turned into tons of people’s favorite “second” game that you come back to all the time. Now, it’s a hard road to run to reach that goal.

Too Cool For School Award Goes To…

People hating on Clair Obscur winning lots of awards

Allow me to dip outside sports for a moment to quickly discuss this one. I’m actually happy this is still a thing. It shows even as generations grow up, there will always be a desire to be “that guy” who wants to go against the grain.

I’m not saying you have to crown Expedition 33 as your GOTY or I’ll consider you a bozo, but the desire for some people to be like “this game sucks” is performative in a way that makes me remember my own days when I would do this as a kid.

Whether you like something or not is subjective, of course, but the way some people are going out of their way to die on a hill with this one is not unlike the way I tried to talk trash about Pokemon as a kid. Here’s the thing, no one is asking you to do that. No one is going to give you a medal for having a take outside the accepted “norm” of the moment.

I wasn’t “brave” or taking a stand by saying I thought Pokemon was trash as a video game, and the show couldn’t live up to Rugrats or Power Rangers. I was just the guy on a horse talking trash about cars as Model-Ts zoomed by me.

Sometimes things aren’t for you, but you can’t get lost in the sauce of your takes, even at the Haters’ Ball.

The Non-G5 Award Goes To…

Football Coach: College Dynasty

When games come out in January, you sometimes forget they came out in the same year by the time December rolls back around. This is especially true when it’s a “non-G5” release like Football Coach: College Dynasty. This game came out in January 2025, but I honestly thought it came out in 2024.

But this game should not be forgotten! It deserves its flowers for being a very good “sim” during a year where “sims” took some hits. This game probably would have done even better if CFB didn’t exist, but it’s a very enjoyable way to run a college football program.

I also think there’s less of a learning curve here than there is with some of the other good management sims out there, so if you’ve been on the fence in the past with them, this could be the one that unlocks something for you.

It’s still 35% off on Steam as of now, so maybe check it out.

The Bruno Caboclo Award Goes To…

College basketball games coming back still, probably?

If you don’t know this clip, it’s Fran Fraschilla eventually saying that Bruno Caboclo is “two years away from being two years away.” It feels right to give out an NBA Draft-adjacent award in this context.

At some point in 2025, it felt like we were back on track and going to get an EA college basketball game by 2028 or so. Then more chaos happened, EA walked away, and now 2K is probably going to do something at some point in 2027?

We’ll need to keep an eye on this throughout the year, but it seems like the game that comes out will be unique in terms of how it comes together. It won’t be every team, and it might not even be its own game, so are we two years away from being two years away from a “true” college basketball game?

2K has become a real mystery to me because their NBA 2K game continues to sell well, and yet they feel like they’re in need of a “win” on the sports game front to keep up any sort of momentum. At times, it feels like they barely care about keeping sports games going, but then you remember they’re still releasing PGA 2K and Top Spin keeps appearing every so often. They’re just not “in” on the major sports beyond basketball — maybe because of costs or maybe because the licenses are not in reach.

What I do know is that as much as I’ve fallen out of love with NBA 2K in recent years, I’m still going to be there on day one for whatever the college “experience” ends up being, because sometimes a “refresh” is all it takes to get some juice back. I look no further than the amount of time I’m pouring into CFB vs. Madden these days for confirmation of that.

…And with that, I’m good on handing out awards. Let me know on Discord if you can think of any other silly awards or award names you want to dish out for 2025.

Here’s to the best day of 2025 for you being your worst day of 2026.

Until next time y’all. And, as always, thanks for reading.

-Chase