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- Season update adds 16 universities to basketball sim
- Full experience expected in early 2027
- EA Sports has abandoned plans to launch own title
The NBA 2K basketball video game series is adding officially licensed colleges and active players for the first time in a move that effectively ends EA’s short-term ambitions of creating a dedicated simulation for the sport.
A new update for the most recent NBA 2K26 title will add 16 universities to the ‘myTEAM’ and ‘myCAREER’ modes, allowing players to unlock real male and female players, uniforms, mascots and other intellectual property.
The release coincides with the men’s and women’s March Madness tournaments, which will crown the 2026 National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) basketball champions next month.
2K Games says the update is the first stage of a multi-stage initiative to bring a full college basketball experience to the series in early 2027. While details are scarce, fans will hope this will allow them to play as their favourite teams and players in a dedicated season mode.
Such a launch would be the first major college basketball game in more than a decade. Both EA Sports and 2K Sports cancelled their college basketball series in the late 2000s due to licensing concerns that would eventually torpedo the former’s hugely popular college football games.
However, changes to name, image and likeness (NIL) regulations in 2021 paved the way for the return of EA Sports College Football in 2023. The commercial success and licensing framework established by that revival led to the College Licensing Company (CLC) issuing a requests for proposals for a college basketball game last June, with both 2K and EA Sports responding.
The CLC recommended its schools accept EA’s offer to create a dedicated college basketball game that would include every men’s and women’s Division I team. In contrast, 2K’s bid requested licences to create an add-on mode to NBA 2K featuring selected schools before evaluating whether a standalone game was financially viable.
EA subsequently said that the decision by programmes to accept a rival proposal from 2K Sports to appear in NBA 2K meant it could no longer proceed with plans for a dedicated college basketball game. This latest update to NBA 2K26 would appear to remove any lingering doubt.
SportsPro says…
2K’s decision to build college basketball into an existing game rather than launch a standalone college basketball title, at least for now, reflects the growth of sports simulations as platforms that seek to monopolise as much attention and disposable income from players as possible.
EA Sports established this model with its Ultimate Team modes, which see players spend hundreds of hours and significant cash in-app purchases to complete challenges and create their dream teams that can be used online against other players.
These modes have been emulated by other games, generating huge amounts of revenue for publishers.
In previous generations of gaming, licenses would be used to power season modes or entirely new games. However, they are now designed to create new in-game items and challenges in a bid to keep players engaged and spending money.
2K, which already has the market leading basketball game on the market, sees college basketball through this prism. Fans will hope it also sees money in making a proper career mode, too.
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