Billionaire Brings Bryce Underwood To Michigan Via NIL Deal

As we’ve outlined recently, the implementation of NIL deals has changed college sports in the biggest of ways. You have massive companies like Dr. Pepper, Bose, Lamborghini and even Nike inking athletes from various sports to six and seven-figure deals, which is ultimately shaping rosters. There are even incredibly wealthy individuals getting involved to make sure that they’re favorite teams get the best players. That’s exactly what recently happened for Michigan with the nation’s top football prospect in the 2025 class.

Big time five-star quarterback Bryce Underwood out of Belleville, Michigan had been committed to LSU for almost a year, but that didn’t keep the Wolverines from recruiting him. Instead, Sherrone Moore, prominent U-M alum and Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy and Michigan’s collective, Champions Circle, along with several others, got together with the second-richest man in the world, Larry Ellison, to come up with a deal to flip Underwood to the maize and blue — and it worked.

Ellison, who is actually an Illinois grad, is married to Jolin, who is a proud Michigan graduate. The Mrs. doesn’t ever want to see a 6-5 Michigan team again, so she decided to get involved. The deal is reportedly worth more than $10 million, which means that Michigan is now proudly and openly playing the NIL game, which they were slow to do. Those days are apparently gone, putting the Wolverines at the forefront of how rosters are now put together.

The NIL world really is crazy. It’s having a huge impact on college football and college basketball, but it’s starting to become more and more present in all sports. Most fans are familiar with Livvy Dunne, the gymnast from LSU, who was reportedly worth more than any athlete, raking in yearly earnings topping more than $4 million. With deals in place from active wear company Vuori and energy drink Accelerator Active Energy, as well as fashion brands Forever 21, Nautica and American Eagle, she is really working with some heavy hitters. Now, with aggressively interested billionaires getting involved just because, the sky is truly the limit. The deals that some of these young men and women are getting are truly astronomical, but they’re fair in an open market. That’s where we’re at nowadays; that’s the NIL world and Underwood reeling in more than $10 million is one of the biggest stories in college sports right now.