CORAL GABLES, Fla. – On July 1, the new name, image and likeness (NIL) law will be in play for the Miami Hurricanes as the state of Florida has a bill in place to benefit college athletes.
“I’m excited for our guys,” head coach
Manny Diaz said. “I’m hoping we have a competitive advantage with that. I think that’s one of the great advantages we can use here with our community in our city here in Miami.”
With the University of Miami campus in a large metropolitan area known internationally, Diaz is hopeful players will be able to take advantage of more opportunities such as endorsement deals or sponsorships.
“Obviously being where you know there’s a great economy like what we have here,” Diaz said. “As we tell our guys, they don’t put professional franchises in small towns and there’s a reason for that. So if you want to maximize your brand, you generally want to go where the people are. I think that can be a great advantage for our guys and hopefully we’ll get off to a great start on that on the first.”
Director of athletics Blake James believes the time the university and its athletes have had to prepare for Thursday’s change will prove beneficial.
“I think you’ll see a lot of things happen on Thursday,” James said on Packer and Durham on Tuesday. “We’ve had the benefit that kids at the schools in the state of Florida have known for over a year now that this was going to happen on July 1. So they’ve had time to be planning and preparing and getting ready to take advantage of it. Obviously with the news Monday the NCAA came out with—all of the students in the country are going to be able to have some type of name, image and likeness program that their institution puts in place, but our kids have that benefit of knowing for a year there’s an opportunity.
“In Miami, an international city, I think there’ll be a number of opportunities. With that said, I don’t think we’re going to see 400 kids signing major endorsement deals and sponsorships or anything like that, but I do think that the law that was put in place in Florida will do a good job in letting kids capitalize on their name, image and likeness.”