There’s a lot of excitement out there around EA Sports’ College Football 25, the first game in the EA Sports College Football series since NCAA ’14. And the game is now being factored into some in-person experiences at big college football games thanks to the Rally Cry Championship Tour. That 10-week tour is organized by gaming company Rally Cry, which builds inclusive experiences for players across ages and skill levels, in partnership with Raycom, Twitch, and the ACC.
The tour will start on Sept. 7 before the Duke’s Mayo Classic in Charlotte, which will see the No. 24 North Carolina State Wolfpack face the No. 14 Tennessee Volunteers. That game’s a 7:30 p.m. ET kickoff, so there’s lots of time for events beforehand at the FanFest around Bank of America Stadium. And the one here will see Rally Cry’s mobile gaming truck offering fans in attendance the chance to play the much-discussed College Football 25.
This is as part of a combination in-person and online event, which will allow people to compete for part of a $5,000 prize pool and a championship trophy. The full competition will run 10 weeks from Sept. 28-Nov. 17 with players competing in ladder matches, followed by a last-chance qualifier and playoffs, with the top four players battling it out in person at the last tour stop on Dec. 4. Here’s a trailer for it:
A new Rally Cry Champions Tour will see opportunities to play "College Football 25" in-person ahead of big games as part of an overall in-person/online tournament. This starts ahead of the NC State-Tennessee Duke's Mayo Classic Saturday. pic.twitter.com/8PK5MzlykN
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 4, 2024
And here are some quotes on the initiative from a release:
“For nearly five years, Rally Cry has been producing some of the biggest events behind the scenes, and we’re pumped to step in the spotlight to bring this innovative college football tour with the one of the most talked about games on the planet,” said Adam Rosen, founder of Rally Cry. “Fans all across the country will be able to show off their skills online and join us at iconic stadiums throughout the season to play in person. It’s definitely going to add another layer to the college gameday experience.”
…”We are thrilled to partner with Rally Cry for this season-long championship tour, and be part of this innovative approach that will bring a new level of entertainment to college football for our schools and fans,” stated ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips, Ph.D. “In addition to the tour stops, we thank Rally Cry and our partners at Raycom/ACCDN, in providing the ‘ACCDN Game of the Week’ stream that will offer our fans even more exciting opportunities to cheer on their favorite ACC teams every week.”
“We’re excited to host the Rally Cry Championship Tour at the Duke’s Mayo Classic FanFest in Charlotte,” said Will Lawson, Director of Partnerships at the Charlotte Sports Foundation. “We know Tennessee and NC State fans are going to enjoy this addition to their game day experience and can’t wait to see the head-to-head matchups between supporters of these two amazing teams!”
For the Sept. 7 event, free play will start at noon Eastern. That will be followed by a featured match between students from the schools and a Celebrity Showmatch, followed by further free play through 6 p.m. Eastern. That kind of format will continue for the other stops. The two announced so far are in Orlando on Sept. 28 (with Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes in town to face the UCF Knights) and in Colorado Springs for the Navy-Air Force rivalry game on Oct. 5. (Interestingly, neither of those features an ACC team.) Further stops will be announced in the coming weeks.
There also will be broadcasts of the online tournament, the in-person stops, and post-produced highlights of those stops through Twitch’s “Twitch Sports” channel. And it’s interesting to see this kind of hybrid gaming in-person/online experience with a broadcast component at big college football games, and to see Raycom and ACCDN involved. Those ACC partners have been doing some interesting digital initiatives, and this adds to that. We’ll see how many fans embrace this idea, both in-person and online, but it’s certainly an interesting one, and a way to connect the new college football video game to live college football experiences.
