Don’t Underestimate Olivia Dunne

Olivia Dunne’s skeptics—and they’re out there—are likely tempted to dismiss her success as an entrepreneur and influencer as simply the result of her appearance. To do so is to underestimate her smarts, and the Herculean amount of work she has put in every day to earn millions of dollars in brand deals while she blazes a new path toward financial stability for women athletes. “People like to discredit what I do because of the way I look,” Dunne says. “But if you take a deeper dive there’s so much more.”

Indeed. 

The 22-year-old’s daily routine would make the average person feel as dizzy as if they’d just attempted one of her patented back handspring layout step outs: school in the morning, followed by grueling gymnastics practices and workouts in the afternoon. Then in the early evening she meets with up with her sister/best friend, Julianna, to create social media content for brands that have hired her to promote their products. And that doesn’t take into account other things that crop up, like testifying during an NIL settlement hearing to argue for fair pay for female college athletes, which she did in April.

Dunne’s meteoric rise began four years ago, when the NCAA ruled that college athletes could profit off of their name, image and likeness. Hers is a textbook case of luck being the place where preparation met opportunity. Dunne did not react to the NIL news by launching Instagram and TikTok accounts as a frantic cash grab. She had been posting on social media for fun since she was 10 years old, building a large following due to her quick wit, her self-deprecating humor and her behind-the-scenes look at what it was like to be on the U.S. junior national team. “I think that my audience could feel that authenticity because it was something I was doing before the rule change,” Dunne says. “This was years in the making. It didn’t come to me easily, and I think that’s a big misconception.”

Though she doesn’t like to discuss money, Dunne did reveal on a podcast two years ago that she was once paid more than $500,000 for a single post. Forbes estimated that she raked in $4 million in 2024 alone. She graduated summa cum laude with a degree in interdisciplinary studies in December and then enrolled in grad school to study technology management. When she completes her degree, she will focus on growing the Livvy Fund, an NIL effort to help LSU’s women athletes secure brand deals. She eventually hopes to expand her initiative to other schools. 

That’s not to say she hasn’t already helped women athletes, whose salaries still lag embarrassingly behind men’s. The top pick in the WNBA draft, Paige Bueckers, will make a base salary of $78,831 (compared to $13.8 million for the NBA’s No. 1 pick). But Dunne’s achievements in the NIL space have helped raise the endorsement market for athletes like Bueckers, who made millions at UConn. Says Dunne, “I want my legacy to be that you’re more than just your sport.”