EA Sports is teasing its first NCAA March Madness college basketball game in 16 years

EA Sports has teased that basketball will be returning to its line-up, with a college basketball game.

The official EA Sports account on X posted an image of a basketball with the EA Sports logo on it.

It was joined by the message: “Bring the Madness. Let’s run it back. #CBB #ItsInTheGame”

EA released its first college basketball game, NCAA March Madness 98 on the original PlayStation back in 1998. This was followed by annual releases until the series ended with NCAA Basketball 10, which was released in November 2009 on PS4 and Xbox 360.

The use of the phrase “bring the madness” implies the returning game will once again have the March Madness name instead of the NCAA Basketball game used for the last couple of games in the series, but this is by no means confirmed. The publisher could instead call the game EA Sports College Basketball, to align it with its popular EA Sports College Football series.

Bring the Madness. Let’s run it back. #CBB #ItsInTheGame pic.twitter.com/iBNhGxn2yj

— EA SPORTS (@EASPORTS) June 30, 2025

College sports aside, EA hasn’t released any basketball games at all for the past seven years.

The publisher used to enjoy success by releasing annual games in its NBA Live series, from the original NBA Live 95 all the way up to NBA Live 10.

However, an attempt to reboot the series with the ill-fated NBA Elite 11 led to the game being pulled at the last second – so late that some boxed copies ended up in players’ hands – and the series took a three-year hiatus while EA attempted to regroup.

The series returned with NBA Live 14 and saw 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019 editions before NBA Live 20 was cancelled. As such, the last basketball game EA has released to date was NBA Live 19, which was released in September 2018.

While EA Sports is considered the leading publisher these days when it comes to American football and ice hockey games, basketball is now very much the domain of 2K Sports, which has enjoyed regular success with its NBA 2K series.

EA’s decision to go down the college basketball route is presumably the result of the impressive sales of EA Sports College Football, the publisher’s first college football game in a decade.

Released in July 2024, EA Sports College Football 25 reached a massive sales milestone in the US, becoming the country’s best-selling sports video game ever based on dollar sales, overtaking NBA 2K21.

Its sequel, EA Sports College Football 26, is set to release on July 10, with a Deluxe Edition offering three days early access starting on July 7.