Billionaire’s mysterious wife helps Michigan land nation’s biggest recruit

University of Michigan football has its own Keyser Söze pulling strings behind the scenes – and her name is Jolin Ellison.

On Thursday, the nation’s #1 football recruit in the 2025 class, QB Bryce Underwood, flipped his commitment from LSU to Michigan. And she may have been the deciding factor.

What happened: Michigan’s NIL collective, the Champions Circle, recently extended a reported offer of $10+ million over four years to Underwood – exceeding the reported $1.5 million/year LSU was offering. Underwood, who committed to LSU in January, took a secret visit to Michigan early last week before ultimately deciding to don the maize and blue.

Behind the offer: The Champions Circle put out a statement the day after Underwood flipped, personally thanking “Jolin and Larry Ellison who were instrumental in making this happen by providing Champions Circle with invaluable guidance and financial resources.”

Larry Ellison, billionaire cofounder of software company Oracle and top-five richest person in the world (net worth ~$235 billion), is well known. His apparent wife, Jolin, is not.

• Ellison divorced his fourth wife in 2010; it’s not publicly known whether he has remarried.
• Scant trace of Jolin exists online – though Champions Circle cofounder Roger Ehrenberg told Front Office Sports: “Jolin is a Michigan alumna who is super passionate about the University of Michigan Athletics and was critical support for the recruitment effort.”

🤑 Big money + college sports: With the deal, the Ellisons join other billionaires becoming involved in college athletics in this new, anything-goes NIL era.