{"id":115999,"date":"2025-08-28T10:14:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T10:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/115999\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T10:14:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T10:14:10","slug":"billionaire-larry-ellison-helped-michigan-nab-americas-top-quarterback-and-ushered-in-the-richest-recruiting-flip-in-college-football-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/115999\/","title":{"rendered":"Billionaire Larry Ellison helped Michigan nab America’s top quarterback\u2014and ushered in the richest recruiting flip in college football history"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday, the University of Michigan announced<\/a> true freshman Bryce Underwood, the consensus No. 1 overall ranked high-school football player in the nation in the 2025 recruiting class, would be the Wolverines\u2019 starting quarterback for Saturday\u2019s season opener against New Mexico. Underwood, who had previously committed to Louisiana State University before flipping to Michigan, becomes only the fourth true freshman in program history to start a season opener and the first since Tate Forcier<\/a> in 2009, capping off what stands as the most expensive recruiting flip<\/a> in college football history.<\/p>\n

The 18-year-old quarterback\u2019s arrival represents the culmination of a $12 million NIL deal that involved an unlikely alliance between Oracle\u2019s billionaire co-founder Larry Ellison, seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady, and Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy to sway the teenager to move to Ann Arbor instead of Baton Rouge, La., and join the Wolverines.<\/p>\n

Michigan\u2019s power play<\/p>\n

Underwood\u2019s recruitment started getting interesting when Portnoy publicly pledged to spend $3 million annually to help Michigan land a top quarterback. Portnoy revealed on his podcast last November<\/a> he soon got a call from the Michigan football team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said, \u2018Hey, there\u2019s this donor who wants to talk to you.\u2019 I said I\u2019m doing this by myself, and I don\u2019t need to talk to anybody. And they said, \u2018Please, this woman is a big fan of Barstool and you; she\u2019d love to talk to you. Her name is Jolin,’\u201d Portnoy recalled. <\/p>\n

Portnoy is referring to Larry Ellison\u2019s wife, Jolin, a 33-year-old woman from China whose real name is Keren Zhu. Jolin Ellison is a Michigan alum<\/a>, having graduated from the university in 2012 with a degree in international studies, and has been married to the 80-year-old tech mogul since at least 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said, \u2018Oh, her husband is a guy by the name of Larry Ellison. Have you ever heard of him?\u2019 Oh, Larry Ellison? The No. 2 richest guy on the planet? Yeah, I\u2019ll take that phone call,\u201d Portnoy said.<\/p>\n

That night, Portnoy, the Ellisons, and Underwood\u2019s family connected on a Zoom<\/a> call. Jolin Ellison, driven by her passion for Michigan athletics and memories of the program\u2019s struggles during the Brady Hoke era, made it clear she was willing to do whatever it took to restore the Wolverines to championship contention.<\/p>\n

The $12 million question<\/p>\n

Michigan\u2019s Champions Circle NIL collective<\/a> ultimately offered Underwood between $10 million to $12 million over four years, dwarfing LSU\u2019s reported $1.5 million annual offer. But what drove the deal home wasn\u2019t just money\u2014it was how Michigan was able to assemble a dream team of mentors and supporters that no other program could match.<\/p>\n

Brady, Michigan\u2019s legendary former quarterback, played a crucial role by establishing a personal relationship with Underwood through regular FaceTime calls. The recruitment also featured an unexpected cameo from Connor Stalions, the former Michigan staffer who resigned amid the 2023 sign-stealing scandal. Stalions had joined Underwood\u2019s high school coaching staff as a volunteer assistant, adding another layer of Michigan influence to the quarterback\u2019s daily life.<\/p>\n

Of course, Michigan had a bit of a hometown advantage: Underwood is from Belleville, Mich., just 15 miles from Ann Arbor. The quarterback\u2019s father, Jay Underwood, said his son could potentially earn upwards of $15 million through NIL opportunities at Michigan, but stressed \u201cbeing able to play at home,\u201d particularly for a program that just won the national championship in 2023, was also a major factor.<\/p>\n

A new reality for college sports<\/p>\n

Underwood\u2019s flip represents more than just one recruit changing his mind\u2014it signals a fundamental shift in how college athletics operates in the NIL era. Champions Circle chairman Nate Forbes explicitly thanked the Ellisons<\/a> in the official announcement, stating they \u201cwere instrumental in making this happen by providing Champions Circle with invaluable guidance and financial resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

The involvement of someone like Ellison\u2014who has no direct ties to Michigan beyond his wife\u2019s alumni status\u2014illustrates how college sports has become a playground for the ultra-wealthy. His previous sports investments include purchasing the Indian Wells tennis tournament and owning the SailGP professional sailing league, but college football had been uncharted territory until this point.<\/p>\n

For Michigan, landing Underwood was also about proving they could compete with the financial firepower of SEC programs in the new NIL landscape. As Portnoy said on his podcast<\/a>, \u201cWhen Larry Ellison targets someone, it\u2019s essentially a foregone conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

For this story,\u00a0Fortune\u00a0used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world. Explore this year’s list.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Monday, the University of Michigan announced true freshman Bryce Underwood, the consensus No. 1 overall ranked high-school…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[23276,399,5411,26584,69141,1303,398,396,397,2844,99,1627],"class_list":["post-115999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-colleges-and-universities","tag-football","tag-fortune-intelligence","tag-high-school","tag-larry-ellison","tag-michigan","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-recruiting","tag-sports","tag-tom-brady"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}