At roughly 12 PM on Friday, June 12th, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill allowing NCAA Athletes in the state to benefit from there name, image, and likeness. Or better known to the world as the “NIL Bill.” The press conference was held at the University of Miami and the Bill goes into effect on July 1st, 2021.

I cannot stress this enough. THIS IS HUGE. The NCAA has spent its entire existence working extremely hard to prevent this from happening and Florida just effectively ended those efforts. But, what now? How will this change things? Let’s take a moment to dive into the effects this will have on the NCAA universe.

Under Pressure

With the new bill passed, the ball is now in the NCAA’s court. They can’t have one state going rogue like this so quickly. California also passed the same bill but it doesn’t go into effect until 2023 which gave the NCAA ample time to get together. That’s all changed now. Florida is only giving the NCAA one year to get moving on creating a cohesive league. Let’s be real, they can’t have one state having a recruiting edge over the rest. It really wouldn’t surprise me if we start seeing even more states follow in DeSantis’ footsteps now.

Recruiting

Florida is one of the richest states for college football talent. Many teams spend a good amount of money and time recruiting there. That’s all gonna change next year if other states don’t follow. You try convincing an 18-year-old 5-star recruit to pick your school over one they can get paid to play at.

Now, I’m not naive, I know teams pay many players under the table, but now it won’t have to be in Florida. No more NCAA breathing down your neck every time a coach so much as pays for a dinner. If other states don’t follow along, there is gonna be a wealth of talent staying in Florida giving those schools major advantages.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out state by state and how the NCAA responds. All I know is that this is a step in the right direction. Plus, we all know how badly we’ve been praying for the video game to return. Perhaps there will be an NCAA Football 21?