Olivia Dunne is one of the more recognizable collegiate athletes in the country, but she went viral this week over a very nasty title that was said about her.
The LSU Tigers gymnast is racking in the dough due to the Name, Image and Likeness deals. Dunne is reportedly estimated to be worth more than $2 million per year.
The title of a New York Times article upset a lot of people when it came out as a way to talk about those deals.
“New Endorsements for College Athletes Resurface an Old Concern: Sex Sells,” the story reads.
Her large salary comes from amassing more than eight million of followers on social media and posting sponsored content. After college athletes were allowed to enter such deals last years, there has been an upward trend of female athletes showing off candid and flirty posts to secure millions of social media followers that boosts endorsement deals.
Dunne eventually caught wind of the article, so she fired back on her Instagram story.
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“Is this too much?” she wrote.
Stanford University’s Tara VanDerveer, the most successful coach in women’s college basketball, told the New York Times the trend of people like Dunne is regressive for female athletes.
‘I guess sometimes we have this swinging pendulum, where we maybe take two steps forward, and then we take a step back,’ she said. ‘We’re fighting for all the opportunities to compete, to play, to have resources, to have facilities, to have coaches, and all the things that go with Olympic-caliber athletics.’
‘This is a step back,’ she added.
Dunne started participating in gymnastics at the age of three. After years of competition, she made her elite debut at the 2014 American Classic and went on to join the U.S. national gymnastics team a few years later.
In 2020, she stepped away from elite gymnastics to compete at the college level at Louisiana State University. Dunne grew her social media following and things changed for her almost instantly.
