When Olivia Dunne was in college, she was one of the top athletes in NIL earnings, at one point ranked number 2, and the only woman in the top 10. With earnings of around $4 million a year, she made more than any other college athlete. Yet, even with this success, something always bothered her: the inequality between men’s and women’s sports.

A year after graduating from LSU, Dunne is still financially prosperous, yet she cannot overlook the gap she witnessed during her college days. Most men, particularly recruits to high-profile sports, were getting offered huge amounts of money, such as $12 million by boosters or collectives before their first game, yet women are hardly getting those same bids. For Dunne, schools such as LSU, most of the collective NIL is distributed to male sports such as football and basketball, with little attention to women’s sports.

This, to Dunne, is not about money; it is about equity, appreciation, and the importance of women in sports. She said, “A recruit that hasn’t even touched foot on a campus yet gets paid $12 million by a booster. That’s not an NIL deal, that’s being paid to play… That would never, that would never happen with any women’s sport.” But she was, as usual, determined to make a difference.

So,  Dunne created The Livvy Fund, a program designed to help female student-athletes secure NIL deals.

The fund pairs athletes with brands willing to support women in sports. “It’s to help get NIL deals for the female student athletes,” she explained. “The brands I work with put money into a fund, and my sister will pair them up with a female student athlete who goes to LSU who wants to work.”

The fund enables brands and supporters to donate one-time, monthly, or annual funds, which are subsequently utilized in addition to the brand relationships that Dunne has to provide in order to create opportunities for women in sports.

Therefore, her mission is to fill the gap in NIL access and have female athletes able to use their talent and marketability, yes. And guess what? The initial brand to partner with the fund was Accelerator Active Energy, which assisted eight LSU gymnasts in gaining NIL ambassador status. As Dunne points out, 66 percent of the collective NIL at the time was being directed to men’s sporting activities, and women were not getting a share of the financial opportunities.

The Livvy Fund is also aimed at educating female student-athletes, besides matching them with deals. Dunne wants to show them how to negotiate with brands, understand contracts, and build long-term value beyond sports. In her words, it’s about creating pathways for success that go beyond immediate earnings. But while she was helping others, Dunne had her own journey behind the mat. So why did she give up gymnastics?

Olivia Dunne’s story of ambition and influence

Olivia Dunne appeared to have known from a young age that she was born to become famous. She was an extraordinary kid with huge dreams even when she was just a little girl. She began gymnastics when she was only three years old and was lured by the shiny pink leotard, yet it was not only the leotard; she felt like she needed a spotlight, she needed to perform, and be her. By age 10, she was already competing at Level 10, the highest level for junior gymnasts, and soon earned a spot on the U.S. junior national team.

When she joined LSU in 2020, Dunne brought the same drive to college gymnastics. Competing on uneven bars and floor, she made a mark with a 9.875 on bars in her first meet against Arkansas. She has suffered a few injuries in her path, but in 2024, she made LSU a national champion and the most visible college athlete on the internet with millions of followers, adding to her NIL income and influence.

But her dreams of becoming an Olympic athlete were cut short in 2018 due to osteochondritis dissecans – a disease that caused a lack of blood to the bones, and still, Dunne did not lose her focus. Gymnastics provided her with discipline, confidence, and a platform, and she swiveled smoothly to personal brand building.

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Today, Olivia Dunne has 5.3 million Instagram followers, 8 million TikTok followers, partners with such brands as Nautica, Vuori, and American Eagle, and has been featured in Sports Illustrated multiple times, proving that the star that Olivia was born to be has just started shining.