Most fans of women’s sports know—stay away from the comments sections. Often, posts by their favorite athletes are rife with comments dismissing, demeaning or belittling the work of women in sports. But in a recent TikTok post from Trinity Rodman, things looked a little different.
"Thanks for the 10 wins last weekend!"
"Packed your 300k inform on [EA FC] the other day from a TOTW (Team of the Week) pack!"
"She's carrying me in champs."
"I would be nothing without you in [EA FC]."
That’s not to say there still isn’t an issue with vitriol online towards women’s sports and athletes, but EA Sports FC is putting women athletes in the spotlight, in front of audiences that might not normally know about the Trinity Rodmans of the world, and certainly starting to change the conversation in their efforts to highlight women soccer players around the world.
For former NWSL midfielder Nicole Baxter, it’s particularly personal. After a nearly five-year professional career, Baxter stepped away from the field, but not the game. The New Jersey native now works for EA Sports FC, building out the inclusion of women players in Ultimate Team mode.
“When I first started working at EA, women’s players weren’t in the Ultimate Team mode yet, but it was announced that they would be, so we had a lot of users very scared and afraid of the change, and not everyone was super excited to have women infiltrate this mode that had been historically only men,” says Baxter, assistant producer at EA FC. “Now that I’ve been here almost two years, [the conversation] has been night and day, going from negative sentiment to people saying they can’t wait for a Sophia Smith card.”
While you may not see Baxter on the field these days, you will find her scouring Reddit and social media comments for feedback on the game. Since Ultimate Team launched women’s players in EA FC 24, she has seen a marked increase in interest across the board in users wanting big name players like Lyon’s Kadidiatou Diani or Barcelona’s Fridolina Rolfö.
“Through the years, slowly, all these people started following women’s soccer to try and figure out some of these players they’re not playing with in the game,” Baxter says. “For better or for worse, we use a lot of those resources [like Reddit and social media], especially on Ultimate Team, because we want the feedback.”
Since FC 25 launched last month, users have seen first-hand just how much EA Sports has taken steps to bring the women’s game and players on par with the men’s such as "Career Mode" including the top five Women’s leagues: Barclays Women's Super League, Arkema Première Ligue, the National Women's Soccer League, the Google Pixel Frauen-Bundesliga, Liga F and the prestigious UEFA Women’s Champions League competition.
According to EA Sports, these partnerships align to establish FC 25 as a game achieving parity with men’s football across all game modes and further contributing towards EA SPORTS FC’s commitment to grow the women’s game.
“I’m so proud of our global studio teams and all their efforts in delivering the next chapter of the world’s game with FC 25, including our most social experience ever with Rush”, said John Shepherd, VP & GM, EA Sports FC ahead of the game launch.
“Players will experience competition like never before, as well as a total overhaul of tactics, strategy and authenticity with FC IQ. And for the first time ever in any football game, we welcome women’s football to the pitch with an authentic Career experience, which has allowed us to achieve game mode parity between men’s and women’s football in EA Sports FC 25.”
For Gotham FC and U.S. women’s national team forward Midge Purce, the inclusion of women’s players in the game has been a significant step forward for the women’s game and a natural progression of the continued growth that it has been seeing all over the world. Purce may be missing the season due to an injury, but that doesn’t mean she’s lost her competitive edge. Instead of picking up her cleats, Purce picks up a controller and tries her hand at EA FC 25.
“In the fight for equality in women’s sports, things like this are often overlooked.” Purce says. “People will look at salary, conditions and the big moments but this is an industry-wide push. Seeing it in a game makes it a lot easier for younger girls to also see themselves in this space. I think it’s a big step and it’s really awesome to see them add a career mode for women.”
The 2023 NWSL championship MVP is fresh off a visit to the White House with her championship-winning team, the first women’s club soccer team to make such a visit. For Purce, this proud moment is also another step forward in the collective effort and work needed to grow the women’s game in all aspects, both on and off the pitch.
“To be the first team invited to the White House is an honor but also a travesty that it took until 2024 for it to happen,” Purce says. “I’m so honored and I hope we’ll be right back there next year.”
Aaron West, a long time user of the game and TV soccer analyst, has had a front row seat to the change in conversation around women’s soccer and EA FC. As a self-proclaimed “obsessive” of the Ultimate Team mode, West often finds himself on FUTBIN, checking out player ratings, but most of all, checking in on what others are saying about the game.
“One of the coolest thing for me is going through and seeing the comments change over months from, ‘who are these women,’ and ‘why are there women in this game’ until it just became, ‘well she’s got a four-star weak foot, she’s more agile,’ to it just being about the game.”
As West scrolled down through the comments recently, he saw one in particular that really marked how much impact EA FC has had on growing the women’s game. Users were now tuning in to watch women’s soccer and get a first-hand idea of just what these players in the game are doing on the field.
“One guy said he just happened to see that Barcelona was playing in the Champions League and turned it on because he knew some of the players and he said, ‘[Alexia] Putellas is actually sick!’ Or, ‘Bonmatí is actually incredible!’” West said. “It was such a cool thing to see over the course of months from just pure misogyny to [women’s players] just being part of the game.
For now, West is focused on building out his team. He packed (a term that refers to unlocking a player when you receive them in a pack of cards in the Ultimate Team mode) Chelsea’s star striker Sam Kerr twice, and is currently eyeing PSG’s Sakina Karchaoui.
For the Soccer Cooligans co-host Christian Polanco, EA FC’s precursor, FIFA, was his introduction to the beautiful game. Soccer was not his family’s main sport, so he grew the love of the game through hours of playing. Although Polanco has a decent working knowledge of women’s players from his job working in soccer, he has seen just how much his own knowledge base has grown since the inclusion of women in Ultimate Team.
“I’ve been playing the game probably way too long, since the mid-90s when I was a kid,” Polanco says. “When the international women’s teams started being in the game, it felt like a cool thing and a novelty, but it really wasn’t until they introduced women into Ultimate Team that I was much more aware of club players. Seeing the names repeatedly normalizes your awareness of the women’s players.”
Polanco watches a lot of NWSL and national tournaments, but through EA FC, he has discovered players in leagues all around the world, and has seen his fellow game users beginning to find an appreciation of the women’s game as well.
“Where I’ve seen the progress is as I’ve played the game, I’ve seen more and more women on people’s teams,” Polanco said. “I think when all the noise about putting women in Ultimate Team dissipated, you just see women on teams and it’s completely normal. The women in the game can fill out and make your teams much better.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as EA FC 25 Is Changing the Conversation Around Women's Soccer .
