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Writer's pictureAndrew Hendren

the fight for Michigan state

Updated: Mar 25, 2021


Michigan State basketball is caught in the middle of a rivalry between Dan Gilbert of Rocket Mortgage and Mat Ishbia of United Wholesale Mortgage. As an MSU alum, Gilbert gives a lot back to the state of Michigan and MSU. On the other side, Ishbia was actually a walk-on for the basketball team during his time at Michigan State, and went on to become the CEO of the current fourth largest mortgage lender.


Last month Ishbia donated thirty-two million dollars to MSU’s athletic department. A few weeks after that, he came out to say that he believed Rocket Mortgage was trying to put mortgage brokers out of business. He asked brokers who worked with United to sign a document saying they won’t work with Rocket. In response, Rocket told brokers not to be bullied and stated that their success was making UHM play defense.


Just last week, Rocket upgraded their sponsorship of the basketball team, where the team will now be known in the Breslin as the “MSU Spartans Presented by Rocket Mortgage.” The price of this new deal is not public information. After this, Ishiba went on record saying he wished Gilbert would donate thirty-three million dollars and one-up his donation.


UHM went public back in January in the largest SPAC of all time. On the other end, RKT was one of the tickers involved with the Wall Street Bets subreddit a few weeks back.


At the end of the day, the real winner in this rivalry is Michigan State and the Spartan basketball team.



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