Miami’s most well-known benefactor John Ruiz has less and less money every day. As his stock continues to plummet, so does his net worth. He is also under investigation by the SEC and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in south Florida.
In fact, his stock in LifeWallet, his health insurance claims company which was once worth over $10.00 per share is now trading for less than a quarter.
Why is this important you ask? Well, it is simple. For the last two years, Ruiz was the driving force behind Miami football’s No. 7 recruiting class and the basketball team’s run to the Final Four. He celebrated on the court with the team after their win in the Elite Eight.
He has been referred to as Miami’s “NIL King”
According to The Miami Herald, Ruiz and MSP Recovery, d.b.a. LifeWallet, are the targets of a probe by the federal investigators, both civilly and criminally.
The company was designed to collect insurance proceeds that Medicare plans paid, that should have been paid by a different company. Essentially, if Medicare paid out health care costs as a result of a car accident claim, they would turn around and file suit against the automobile insurance carrier to get the money back.
The SEC, Securities and Exchange Commission, not the South Eastern Conference, and the United State’s Attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida are currently investigating the facts surrounding Ruiz’s rags to riches story.
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Just a decade ago, Ruiz weathered a storm when his Coral Gables home, his office building, and his boat, were all sought to be taken from him by foreclosure or repossession. He also had a $300,000 tax lien with his ex-wife Mayra.
He did not fare well.
So, what did Ruiz do when he got in the money? He rang the bell at NASDAQ days after his company’s stock went public and then proceeded to lose two-thirds of its original value.
Then he started to flaunt his money and make promises to build the Hurricanes their own football stadium.
He bought seven waterfront mansions, a private Boeing passenger jet and the company that makes Cigarette Racing boats.
I guess you could say that Ruiz had the need for speed.
Ruiz’s newly-found troubles began when LifeWallet’s recent SEC filing created red flags. They admitted that the numbers were inaccurate in April, and the company admitted that its quarterly financials for the prior quarter were unreliable.
Ruiz became a major player in UM athletics and around the country, when he not only threw around NIL cash to whoever needed it, he promised to build a new stadium for the Hurricanes to play in, just a few miles from campus.
The plans have been tabled and Ruiz is no longer the “NIL King” He used to go on Twitter every night and fight with football fans around the country who doubted him. I have not seen a football or NIL related Tweet from him in months.
Miami has originated Canes Connection for NIL purposes. Ruiz has added deals with players that amount to about 20 percent of the players’ deals. It should be noted that Ruiz has not missed a payment to any of the players that he deals with.
Ruiz has a deal with freshman offensive lineman Samson Okulola, AKA The Pancake Honcho.
He promised the Honcho that he would open a food truck business designed to sell Pancakes. Have you seen the truck? Probably not. It has not materialized yet.
Putting Ruiz and his fledging company aside, Miami’s NIL future looks bright.
“In this calendar year of 2023, 80 percent of our NIL deals are through Canes Connection. LifeWallet has a minority of the deals, 15 to 20 percent maybe, and the collective over the last six months has really grown its list of supporters, names you’d recognize but that don’t want to be out there in the public eye, a source close to the program told The Athletic. “They like to support the university and the school, but they operate very differently. They do it quietly. Four out of every five UM deals right now are from other sources, and I expect it to be 100 percent in 2024.”
Attempts to reach Ruiz through his daughter Diana were unsuccessful.
