Don't know if this topic has come up earlier or if it is even possible within the coding of HD but has there been any consideration on moving schools to their proper divisions? Palm Beach Atlantic should be DII; UC Davis and CSU Bakersfield should be DI etc.

This topic comes up from time to time as well as the suggestion to move teams to their proper conferences. While it would be great to have these changes implemented it would cause too much disruption. The only way I see anything like this happening is if they create a new world.

Ya this would be cool if they did re-align the worlds but if would cause a ton of disruption and its hard to properly balance as the current layout makes schedules and consistency easy. Some Conferences in the real world have more than 12 teams and some have less than 10.

atblack used to keep a running list of all the changes that would have to be made, including schools that are in the game that no longer exist.

My bigger question has always been how the game gets away with NOT making these changes. Presumably the game has to pay licensing to the NCAA for using schools, conference names, etc. I can't imagine that a school like Florida Gulf Coast would be happy still being identified as a non-Division I program or that a school that has had a major conference move like Creighton would appreciate still being identified with its mid-major affiliation. Admittedly, I'm not a lawyer, but having worked university relations earlier in my lifetime, I can say there are a number of administrators who would easily get bent out of shape at a misrepresentation involving the school name/conference name. I've seen lawyers called in for far more trivial stuff.

From a game perspective, I totally get how annoying it would be to do...from the scheduling to the ripping of human owners from one league to another because some AD in real life got bored (although if it was known in advance that this was a possibility, then let the buyer beware...problem solved). From a legal perspective though, I've always wondered if we're tap dancing in a grey area (or just flat out of bounds and nobody's ever blown a whistle on it...)

"Presumably the game has to pay licensing to the NCAA for using schools, conference names, etc. "

Nah, nothing needed to use the name and likeness of colors.

Posted by KVegas on 9/20/2017 8:24:00 PM (view original):
"Presumably the game has to pay licensing to the NCAA for using schools, conference names, etc. "

Nah, nothing needed to use the name and likeness of colors.

Is it really that cut and dried though?

Individually, sure, probably nothing wrong with using a school name, but when you start assembling the pieces, it probably gets really hazier. Each of the colleges in the game is likely trademarked by the respective schools. When you conveniently pair them with the actual color scheme of the university or college, you move a step closer. Each of the conferences are similarly trademarked. When you place the schools into divisions that mirror the real-world NCAA structure, again, you move closer to a perception of reality that, when taken collectively, sends a message. Again, if I'm a D1 school being represented as a D2 program, I'm taking issue with that. If I'm Notre Dame, maybe I don't want my university associated with the Big Ten Conference, especially since my sports teams play in a wholly different league, do I want the perception the game makes of my institution, or does that potentially harm me?

I don't know, but I think there's a definite reason that companies like Grey Dog Software, which isn't licensed (or at least wasn't when I bought my copy years back...), specifically uses fake school nicknames and, in some cases, fake names for certain universities in its college football game.

Given that high schools get cease and desist letters from halfway across the country sometimes because their mascot or jersey font just happens to look too similar to BigName U's, or that t-shirt designers get told they can't crank out products because they shade of the shirt is too close to officially licensed university apparel, I'm really not convinced that we're as in the clear here as you think. When I worked in North Dakota, we got a letter from Louisville because our bird mascot, in some attorney's opinion, looked too similar. Even though ours was blue and theirs was red. Even though they were the Cardinals and we were the Blue Hawks. Even though the name of our school looked nothing like Louisville.

Yes, using a logo would be a copyright.

They don't use logos or say for example "Indiana University". Saying Indiana, Michigan, Ohio State, is not a violation.