EA Sports: It's In The Game (Unless You're Holly or Molly or Kris)
Why I had to address this snub in College Football 25.
I have a tweet pinned on my Twitter profile:
It’s a quote from Sarah Spain, an award-winning sports journalist, from an episode of the We Can Do Hard Things Podcast about inequities in male-dominated industries.
Earlier this week, EA Sports confirmed the personalities appearing in the much-anticipated College Football 25 video game. The list:
• Chris Fowler (Commentator)
• Kirk Herbstreit (GameDay + Commentator)
• Desmond Howard (GameDay)
• Rece Davis (GameDay)
• David Pollack (GameDay)
• Kevin Connors (Studio Host)
• Jesse Palmer
All worthy and appropriate personalities! Many of the voices and faces of college football! Great!
But missing from the list? Women. Or a single woman, for that matter.
I can already hear the groans from the Chads who grew up playing this game before its production ended in 2013.
“This isn’t about you.” (Yeah, I know, that’s my point.)
“You make everything about race or gender.” (Yeah, I do, because you sure as hell won’t.)
“It’s just a video game. Shut up.” (If it’s “just a video game,” then why haven’t you shut up about missing it for the last 11 years?)
It’d be one thing if women weren’t part of the consumer-facing college football landscape, but they are! I have three words for you: HOLLY EFFING ROWE.
For 2023 ABC/ESPN college football broadcasts alone, see also: Molly McGrath, Kris Budden, Kayla Burton, Stormy Buonantony, and Dawn Davenport.
Hi! We exist!
And don’t tell me women and girls don’t play video games either. Sharing the amount of childhood hours I spent in front of a TV playing Ken Griffey Jr.’s Major League Baseball on my N64 would make my mother blush, so I’ll keep it to myself. But you get the point.
Hi! We exist!
Are we the main demographic for this game? No, obviously not. I’m not delusional. But I’m not asking EA Sports to revamp their list of personalities to an all-female crew. I’m not even asking for multiple female personalities. I’m just asking for a single, lousy nod to represent the reality that we, in fact, exist.
And this is why I keep that tweet pinned on my profile.
This snub to the women broadcasters of college football is exactly the kind of microaggression that occurs daily in ways both big and small. Intentional or not, it tells us we’re forgettable at best and unworthy at worst. And then when we raise our hands in protest or even just for acknowledgement, the Chads get Big Mad so that next time around we think twice about stepping out of line.
I hate admitting this, but the Big Mad strategy works. After the list of College Football 25’s personalities was leaked, I spent days debating whether to write this column because, honestly, I’m too tired to deal with the comments on social media. I saw what happened when Holly Effing Rowe spoke out, and I was reminded why I should never break Rule #1: Never Read the Comments.
But then I remembered how my 8-year-old daughter’s bedroom is adorned with as much Kansas City Chiefs memorabilia as sparkly headbands and pink stuffed animals. Then I remembered how my 6-year-old daughter’s favorite after school activity is running routes and recovering fumbles in our living room. And I decided the Chads can go to hell.
Will anyone decide not to buy the game because of this column? Probably not. Will EA Sports change their mind and include Holly (or Molly or Kris) this time around? Probably not. But maybe someone will see this and share it on social media and then someone else will see it and share it and then someone else will see it and think twice about it when College Football 26 is released—and that’s how incremental change occurs. And that’s the least I can do.
So hi, EA Sports! We exist! Do better.
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This definitely brings back memories of all the side comments from guys in high school in the 80’s. I had undiagnosed ADHD but I also had good grades. A couple of male classmates seemed to go out of their way to point out how “spacey” I was. They also liked to point out how “good” I looked in a pair of tight jeans - female English teacher told me I should take as a compliment instead of as the demeaning BS it was. All of my adult jobs have been in male dominated industries, and it’s only been in the last decade or so that the daily micro aggressions have stopped. Or maybe it’s just that in my last job I was 15+ years older than the guys and they had been raised by moms who grew up in the 70’s and 80’s and taught them better.
Steph, your take is so important! Thank you for writing this!