Olivia Dunne Says Other LSU Gymnasts ‘Deserve’ NIL Success ‘Just as Much’ as She Does (Exclusive)

Gymnast Olivia Dunne became the NCAA’s highest-paid female athlete this year, and now the 21-year-old Louisiana State University star is helping other female athletes secure lucrative brand deals.

Dunne’s Livvy Fund — which first launched in July — announced a new partnership with Accelerator Active Energy on Tuesday, revealing that the brand will be the first to make NIL deals with athletes through the fund. In addition, eight LSU gymnasts will become Accelerator ambassadors, the brand said in a statement to PEOPLE.

“I was lucky enough to have all these different opportunities with NIL and I had the experience because for other athletes it might be very foreign at the beginning,” Dunne tells PEOPLE. “So I just wanted to help other women and give them a chance to learn and have more NOTHING jobs because they deserve it just as much as I do.”

Dunne’s net worth was estimated at $3.5 million in July, according to the On3 NIL 100 list. She became the highest-paid NCAA female athlete after the NCAA agreed to a new Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) policy in July 2021, allowing student athletes to accept sponsorship contracts.

Gymnast Olivia Dunne Debuts ‘SI Swimsuit’: ‘I Can Be Strong and Sexy’ (Exclusive)

LSU’s Olivia Dunne warms up on bars during a gymnastics meet against Auburn at Neville Arena on Feb. 10, 2023.

Stew Milne/Getty

Marka says Dunne, whose NIL deals include American Eagle and Motorola, chose gymnastics as the first of the LSU women’s sports to benefit from the partnership during her senior year at the university.

The list of Accelerator Active Energy brand ambassadors includes Travis Kelce, Aaron Judge, Jalen Hurts and Tunde Oyeneyin. Through Dunne’s initiative, the eight gymnasts selected as Accelerator Ambassadors are Ashley Cowan, Jillian Hoffman, Konnor McClain, Chase Brock, KJ Johnson, Haleigh Bryant, Sierra Ballard and Kiya Johnson.

Olivia Dunne is the highest-paid NCAA athlete — and wants ‘equal opportunities for men and women’

Dunne says LSU “helped out a lot throughout the NIL after the rule changed,” and that the school even has an entire department dedicated to helping its student-athletes navigate NIL contracts.

“They were just supportive, so I decided to give back to the school and the program that helped me so much,” Dunne says of her experience at LSU.

The university also found success with basketball star Angel Reese, who also became one of the college’s highest-paid female athletes with an estimated $1.3 million in endorsement deals this year. Reese, 21, has signed NIL deals with brands like Coach, McDonald’s and Amazon.

Angel Reese and Olivia Dunne attend the 2023 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue Party Noam Galai/Getty Images for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit

Entering her senior year at LSU, Dunne tells PEOPLE she’s looking forward to “competing” this season with one main goal in mind: “Win a national championship,” she says.

“It’s never been done at LSU before. It’s unprecedented territory for LSU gymnastics,” Dunne explains, adding, “I’m so excited for one last try and hopefully it’ll be my best yet.”

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The All-American gymnast already had a large following on social media during her years in the sport.

Dunne started training at age 3, became the youngest elite USA gymnast at age 11, and won gold with the USA Junior National Team in 2017. By age 16, she had up to 100,000 Instagram followers and her TikTok views skyrocketed when the pandemic hit in 2020

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Source: HIS Education