Oracle Billionaire Larry Ellison Funded Michigan’s NIL Stunner

The billionaire software and media tycoon Larry Ellison played a key role in Michigan flipping a top-ranked recruit this week, a founding member of the Wolverines NIL collective told Front Office Sports.

Ellison, reportedly worth more than $200 billion, was not previously known to use his vast fortune to influence college sports. He was once photographed at a tennis tournament wearing a Michigan hat, and photos circulated on the internet Friday of Ellison sitting next to a woman wearing a Michigan hat at the Indian Wells tennis tournament in 2022. 

Ellison’s involvement in the recruitment of Bryce Underwood, a Belleville, Mich., high school quarterback, first surfaced in a statement Friday from Michigan’s NIL collective, Champions Circle, which took a victory lap after funding a reported eight-figure deal to flip Underwood’s commitment from LSU. 

“We are very excited to keep Bryce home in Michigan as he continues to build his legacy,” Champions Circle chairman Nate Forbes said in the statement. “I want to personally thank Jolin and Larry Ellison who were instrumental in making this happen by providing Champions Circle with invaluable guidance and financial resources.”

Champions Circle deleted that statement Friday and shared a new one, hours later, that removed the surname “Ellison” and referred only to “Larry and his wife Jolin.”

Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder of Oracle, divorced his fourth wife in 2010 and it is not publicly known whether he has remarried. He was involved with a Ukrainian model named Nikita Kahn in the 2010s, although Kahn has been linked to a reality TV personality this year. Ellison opened a Malibu restaurant named after Nikita in 2013 and had not previously had any reported connections to anyone named Jolin.

The revised Champions Circle statement calls Jolin “a proud Michigan alum” and quotes her saying she’s “a big fan of the University of Michigan and Michigan Athletics.” Scant trace of Jolin exists online; Michigan’s alumni office did not respond to several requests for comment.

Champions Circle co-founder Roger Ehrenberg, a businessman and longtime Michigan backer, cleared up the confusion in an email to FOS. “Larry is indeed THE Larry Ellison,” Ehrenberg wrote in response to questions about Larry and Jolin. “Jolin is a Michigan alumna who is super passionate about the University of Michigan Athletics and was critical support for the recruitment effort.” Ehrenberg graduated from Michigan in 1987 and sits on the advisory board of the Ross School of Business. 

Representatives for Michigan, Ellison, Oracle, and several of his associated companies did not respond to requests for comment.

If the 80-year-old Ellison has married for the fifth time, it would be significant news in media, politics, business, and entertainment.

His fortune has swelled to more than $230 billion, making Ellison the fourth-richest man on the planet. His son David is set to control Skydance Media and Paramount Global after the companies complete their long-planned merger. (Paramount owns CBS, which airs some Michigan games through a deal with the Big Ten.) His daughter Megan has used the family fortune to found Annapurna Pictures, a movie studio that pumps out perennial Oscar contenders. Larry himself remains a major figure in American society, donating millions to Republican candidates—although not Donald Trump in 2024—and continuing to run Oracle as executive chairman and chief technology officer. As of late 2023, he owned 42% of Oracle—whose $532 billion market capitalization is the source of much of his wealth—and a significant stake in Tesla. 

The Oracle founder does have well-documented and extensive involvement in sports. He bought the Indian Wells tennis tournament in 2009, and spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding a sailing team in the America’s Cup. He nearly bought the Golden State Warriors in 2010, but narrowly missed a deadline and lost out to current Warriors owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber. For years, the Warriors played in Oracle Arena, an Oakland staple bearing the name of Ellison’s software company. Oracle now owns the naming rights to the San Francisco Giants’ park.

But Ellison was not known to be a Michigan fan. He briefly attended the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago in the 1960s, not graduating from either. A 2000 newspaper profile of Ellison says that he “rooted against University of Michigan sports teams for 25 years” after an ugly breakup with a woman who went there.

Underwood’s NIL deal would be pocket change for Ellison. LSU reportedly had offered the teenage QB a four-year deal worth $1.5 million annually. Michigan’s collective upped that number to at least $10 million over four years, with at least one report saying the offer was for $12 million. 

Being able to tap Ellison’s vast financial resources would be a game-changer for Michigan in the NIL era. The Wolverines have often been viewed as a second-tier recruiting power and have stumbled to a 5–5 record in their first season since Jim Harbaugh returned to the NFL. Underwood, the No. 1-ranked QB in his high school class, appeared at Michigan’s game Saturday against Northwestern decked out in blue and yellow after officially flipping his commitment.