Apparently they do according to this
post by Bill Abner over at the Sports Gamer blog. After working his way through EA's MVP 06 NCAAA Basebell he checked out a few of the reivews for the game and found that most of the reviews for the game out there ding the game for not having the MLB license (2K Sports has exclusive MLB rights now) rather than for actual defects in the game. While the game isn't perfect he indicates that the reviews are probably a little lower than they would be with an official license(something that is mentioned in most of the reviews).
This of course raises the question of if it's worth it to even have a sports game that doesn't have a link to the professional incarnation of the sport without a major gimmick or twist on the sport (like Midway did with their Blitz game this year). For most people probably not as part of the fun of having a sports game is being able to play as and play against the people you watch on TV. There's also the aspect of playing the general manager of a team and being able to trade and drop specific players on your favorite team (The first thing staff writer Ben Berry does when he starts a franchise in any hockey game is to trade for Serge Aubin). Sure you can go through and modify all the teams but most people aren't willing to do that.
Now it's a bit different for college sports but in this case (NCAA baseball) you really have to ask if there's much of a market for a college baseball game. College football and college basketball is where the real interest lies and I would almost guess that college hockey has at least as much following, if not more than college baseball (that's my hockey bias though). Like hockey, you don't have the same attachment to the players university like you do in football and to a lesser degree basketball.
Getting back to the point though is it really fair to knock a game with solid gameplay for not having a license? Probably not, but that's just my opinion.
