Don’t forget the players get their money too. I’m not sure how it works for the trading cards but, for the MLB at least, players get paid for their likeness used in video games.
As an interesting aside, Barry Bonds is the only player since the 70s to opt out of the collective player licensing agreement. He figured he’d make more if he / his agent negotiated his own deals. This led to him not appearing in a lot of the licensed games from that era. Normally he got replaced by a fictitious white guy who batted right handed to avoid any possible litigation since developers didn’t want to work out a separate deal with him.
As an interesting aside, Barry Bonds is the only player since the 70s to opt out of the collective player licensing agreement. He figured he’d make more if he / his agent negotiated his own deals. This led to him not appearing in a lot of the licensed games from that era. Normally he got replaced by a fictitious white guy who batted right handed to avoid any possible litigation since developers didn’t want to work out a separate deal with him.