EA Sports College Football 26 is just two weeks away from its release date on July 10 and more details inside the game are being revealed.

That includes team ratings. So where does Pitt stack up compared to the other teams in the game?

According to CFBrating.com, Pitt’s unofficial overall rating is a 78 — the 62nd ranked team in the game. The Panthers’ offense is an 80 overall, while the defense is an 86 overall.

Pitt boasts a top-10 rated defensive player in the game. All-American linebacker Kyle Louis is rated a 93 overall, which is the 17th highest-rated player and ninth-best defensive player.

Running back Desmond Reid is another one of the best players in the game. He was given a 91 overall rating and is the 90th-best player in the game.

Pitt was also heavily featured in an in-depth Road to Glory trailer that showcases a recruit’s path from high school to selecting Pitt and going onto the National Football League.

Got our guy @EASPORTSCollege https://t.co/Jn0xDsSAAP pic.twitter.com/FhIUpRYt3f

— Pitt Panthers (@Pitt_ATHLETICS) June 27, 2025

It’s interesting to see how Pitt’s overall rating will adjust as the season goes on, but for now, they are on the lower side of Power Four teams and behind rival West Virginia. The Mountaineers were 10 spots higher with an 80 overall rating.

This year’s trailer showcased the Backyard Brawl with quarterback Eli Holstein weaving his way through the West Virginia defense before stretching at the goal line for a touchdown.

For the players sake, they will earn over double the money from EA Sports in the upcoming edition of College Football 2026.

According to a report from Chris Vannini of The Athletic, an email was sent to Football Bowl Subdivision players on Tuesday stating that those who opt into the video game will see name, image and likeness payments increase from $600 to $1,500 for the newest version.

The long-awaited College Football 25 game saw 14,000 players opt in with 11,000 players NIL officially used within the game. The number of players featured in the game is expected to remain the same. CFB25 went on to become the highest-selling sports game of all-time based on dollar sales.

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Tennis superstar Roger Federer is now one of the few athletes who can count themselves a billionaire.

Federer, who won 20 grand slam titles between 2003 and 2018, amassed US$130.6 million in prize money during a 24-year playing career that ended in 2022. But the bulk of the Swiss star’s wealth has come via a series of bumper sponsorship deals, alongside an astute investment in a local sneaker brand.

His net worth is about US$1.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, putting him in elite company. Michael Jordan’s hit an estimated US$3.5 billion after the sale of his stake in the Charlotte Hornets in 2023, while last year Bloomberg calculated Tiger Woods’ wealth at about US$1.36 billion.

Federer is worth considerably more than US$1 billion, according to people close to him who spoke on condition of anonymity. Bloomberg’s valuation takes into account Federer’s career earnings, investments and endorsement deals, adjusted for prevailing Swiss tax rates and market performance.

Many of his deals have lasted decades, from sponsorships with Credit Suisse bank (now UBS Group AG), watchmaker Rolex and Swiss chocolatier Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Sprungli AG.

Federer has also built a close advisory network around him, including through Team8, the management company he co-founded with long-time agent Tony Godsick in 2013, and also the Swiss firm Format A AG, which helps manage various investments and his charitable foundation.

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He walked onto campus last week with a private jet’s schedule, not a backpack. A top recruit in football. His name alone earns social media blitzes. He’ll wear school colors for a run’through, then fly off to a private dinner with boosters to hash out his NIL deal. This wasn’t always how college sports began its fall season.

College, once the last sanctuary of amateurism, feels more like a draft combine with lockers. Players are signed, sealed, delivered–and departed–on sight of a check. Coaches pitch strategy and returns. Parents cheer, boosters sweat, compliance officers do clerical triage. Team? Cohesion? Loyalty? Those faded amid logos and ledger entries.

NIL started with good intentions. Let student-athletes profit from their name, image, and likeness. Three years later, it morphed into a free’agency circus–free agency with helmets.

Think of it. Under current rules, that football phenom at State U can land a $500,000 deal. Next week, a bigger offer comes from Rival U. He hops, no transfer portal drama needed–deal done, locker changed. Schools watch as talent drips away like water through a sieve. Teams morph every season. Bonds–built over grinds, shared locker room stories, long film sessions–get shredded by spreadsheets.

The Nico Iamaleava situation in Tennessee is only the beginning.

Want to pick apart the damage? Ask the smaller revenue sports:

Wrestling: top schools–Penn State, Iowa, Oklahoma State–pull in elite recruits via NIL-backed funds and have as many as 30 scholarships to dish out instead of the old 9.9. Mid’majors? They scrape by. Scholarships are few. Keep offers tight. Those kids chase dollars or drop out, because the NCAA’s eye’patch won’t see the imbalance. That drives the talent funnel toward big-name programs and leaves the field empty everywhere else.

Olympic sports? Title IX demands equity. But NIL deals mostly land in football and basketball. So schools use that money to subsidize others until there’s nothing left and they drop the sport. Ever try talking to a prom queen at a school that lost swimming? You don’t need a compliance manual to feel the loss.

We’ve become an era of “designated student’athletes.” Each school can dish out up to $20 million a year, but it goes to football and hoops. Texas A&M, for example, cut $10 million in program budgets to fund the decision, freezing out every other sport. They call it sustainability. I call it “you play what we pay for.”

Even among those “big’time” sports, the unfairness is wild. Coaches complain recruits arrive asking not “Will you coach me?” but “What’s my NIL ceiling?” One coach told investors: “We don’t recruit players–we recruit logos.” They see kids as walking billboards, not teammates. The locker room becomes a market, not a microcosm of trust.

That same coach noted early retirements are on the rise. Jim Larranaga, Tony Bennett–they walked away, unable to slog through rosters rebuilt each year. One year they coach. Next year, it’s a new team–fresh faces, no culture, no continuity.

Maybe you cheer that players now earn millions. Sure. But understand how lopsided the flow is. Take basketball phenom Cooper Flagg: nowhere near the NBA draft yet, but already valued at $4.8 million in NIL terms. A senior walk’on in women’s soccer? Probably zero. And if she transfers, no one’s writing a check. That gap erodes the ethos of college athletics.

Fans feel it. Saturdays feel hollower when every win is scripted around marquee names–and those names change every season. Regional identity? Gone. Loyalty? Dead. Instead, we get yearly film sessions during summer recruiting, not game film, but sponsor film. “Showcase your brand.” That’s the pregame now.

More worryingly, we’re testing the durability of amateurism. Courts are collapsing it. The $2.8 billion antitrust settlement did the deed: colleges can now pay directly from revenue. You think bidding wars stop at athletes? Collectives tied to boosters? That’s a short flight. Soon, coaches, staff and agents will jockey for a share. Schools will push spending limits. Then universities sue each other over caps. Free agency becomes full professionalization, and the NCAA becomes NCAA No More.

Supporters say NIL is overdue justice: players generate money, why not share? They point to inequality, poverty in athletes’ families, exploitation. That’s real. Before NIL, many prospects passed on real chances to provide for loved ones to play. That needed fixing.

But fix doesn’t always mean destroy. It didn’t have to bruise the sanctity of the team. It didn’t need to tilt the scales so hard. We could have capped deals by revenue share. We could have included every sport in the payout. We could have enforced limits per athlete. We did none of that. Instead, we opened Pandora’s locker room.

Does NIL empower athletes? Absolutely. Does it empower elite athletes and sports only? Also absolutely. Does it fracture small programs? Yep. It fractures coaching models built on trust. It fractures fan bases built on loyalty. It fractures college as a proving ground–where kids hone their skills, bond, momentarily shine, then move on. Now it’s sharper, faster and compensated. Maybe more efficient. But definitely not amateur.

So what’s the alternative? If we want real reform, let’s cap payments at a fraction of revenue and split it across every rostered athlete, not just the superstars. Reward participation, not prime time popularity. Tie pay to headship of the roster, with a minimum NIL stipend for everyone. Force schools to demonstrate Title IX equity in NIL payouts. Stiffen tampering rules when athletes break signed deals to chase price hikes. Fund all sports, not only profit ones.

Otherwise, expect more lawsuits, such as the Wisconsin-Miami tampering case. Expect more retirements. Expect more roster grief. Expect college sports unspooling, one NIL deal at a time.

College once felt sacred because it was shared: students and athletes in classrooms and on fields, tied by a shared identity. That identity came through sacrifice and teamwork, not sponsorship. Now, sacrifice is optional. Loyalties shift with the dollar. And the line between college and pro gets thinner by the minute.

NIL could be remembered as the moment college sports matured–or the moment we killed what made it stick.