Olivia Dunne has taken her first step towards becoming a millionaire, with the American teenager announcing a huge partnership.
American gymnastics phenomenon Olivia Dunne has taken her first step towards becoming a teenage millionaire, announcing her first exclusive brand partnership with activewear company Vuori.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) amended its regulations in a historic move back in July, which meant Louisiana NCAA athletes were no longer prohibited from selling the rights to their names, images, and likenesses (NIL).
Student athletes are now able to make a profit by monetising social media accounts, starting their own businesses and participating in advertising campaigns, among many other potential ventures.
Last month, WME Sports announced it had signed gymnast Dunne, one of the sport’s most influential athletes, and the 18-year-old has already begun profiting from the amended NCAA regulations, revealing her first brand deal on Instagram.
“Dream come true! Excited to announce my exclusive partnership with Vuori,” she wrote on Wednesday. According to unconfirmed reports, the partnership is worth around $US500,000 ($AUD680,000).
Newsweek predicted that she could quickly make a million dollars from endorsement deals in the very near future.
Speaking to Forbes, Dunne confessed she has been filtering through numerous brands that were lining up to work with her.
“This is my first exclusive brand deal I‘ve ever done, so I was trying to find a brand to work with that is authentic to me and that I would want to introduce to my audience to because they trust me,” she said.
“I don’t try to put any pressure on myself, and I don’t try to compare myself to other people. I’m kind of just going with the flow, and it’s very exciting.
“Right now it‘s all about trying to find a balance between school, social media and gymnastics. All them are top priorities in my life. I think it’s really a special time right now with the NIL change, especially for women’s sports because there’s not a lot of professional leagues after college for women.
“Social media is always something that I’ve loved, and what I think is so great about the NIL rule change is that you can do whatever you love and make money off of it.”
Dunne began gymnastics at three-years-old and has competed at the U.S. Classic, WOGA Classic, American Classic, National Championships, City of Jesolo Trophy, Nastia Liukin Cup, and NCAA.
She joined the social media platform TikTok in 2020 and has quickly become one of the most followed NCAA athletes in the country.
The collegiate athlete has 4.4 million followers on TikTok where she posts gymnastic, dance, lip-synch and challenge videos. On Instagram, she has a further 1.3 million followers on her profile with upwards of 300,000 likes on her posts.
Entertainment lawyer Roy Maughan Jr. believes Dunne could potentially earn millions from the WME Sports signing.
“I know of a college football player from a small school who just signed for $2.4 million. It could happen,” he told The Daily Advertiser.
“Her reach as an athlete is what is impressive — five million on social media. The fact that she has that following, she can touch a lot of people. She could endorse sports drinks, gymnastics wear, other clothes.”
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