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One of the most recognizable athletes in college sports, Olivia “Livvy” Dunne has recently started the “Livvy Fund”, aimed at helping female LSU athletes to find brand partners for NIL deals.
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The 20-year-old has had a meteoric rise to fame, from becoming a star in college athletics to having millions of followers on social media. Her social media following is the highest of any student-athlete in the country. She has 7.6 million TikTok and 4.2 million Instagram followers, dwarfing fellow college sports stars such as Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark.
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Building such an enormous brand for herself has also helped her negotiate brand deals with some of the biggest brands associated with sports as well as other industries. The LSU Tigers’ athlete is only second behind Bronny James in On3’s NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) Rankings with a whopping evaluation of $3.5m.
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And Dunne seems to be set on helping her fellow women’s athletes using her platform. The gymnast recently started her fund titled “The Livvy Fund” which is aimed at helping female LSU athletes in finding new brand partners for NIL deals. Dunne explained the motivation behind the initiative by saying: "The collectives mostly go to the men's sports here at LSU and I just want to fight for equal NIL opportunities."
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As one of the leading female athletes’ when it comes to building a brand and finding NIL deals, the new initiative is Dunne’s way of giving back. She wants to educate other female athletes on how to promote themselves and how to negotiate endorsement deals with brands from various industries.
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“I really just hope that [The Livvy Fund] is the first of many. I really hope to get as many women student athletes on board as I can. I want to continue to elevate women’s sports as a whole because they really deserve the same publicity as the men’s. We do equal work, we put in equal time in our facilities every day and in school, so I feel like it would be right for this to be equal.”
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Last year, Dunne was featured in an article by the New York Times that implied Olivia Dunne was only earning endorsement deals because of her attractiveness. It went on to say that she utilized suggestive images to improve her NIL profile.
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However, the Team USA gymnast was having none of it as she took to social media, posting a racy picture on her Instagram, tagging NYTimes with the caption: “@Nytimes is this too much?”. The response was well received by her fans as the post garnered millions of likes and several comments.
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Following this incident, Dunne signed another NIL deal with Sports Illustrated appearing in their Swimsuit Edition gaining a multitude of fans. However, some of the fans did end up causing a controversial moment during a gymnastics meet in Utah earlier in the year. LSU had to increase its security to stop fans from interrupting events.
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Dunne was recently pictured at the Ally 400 Race at Nashville Superspeedway where she shared a video on TikTok that featured herself alongside two members of the U.S. Army at the race. Using the infamous TikTok soundbite "My pronouns are U-S-A", Dunne emphasized her patriotism and connection to the country.
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