Livvy Dunne

United States 🏅 Olympic Sports

Livvy Dunne is the reason college athletes now negotiate NIL deals, or at least she's the most visible argument for why that was always the right policy. The LSU gymnast from Hillsdale, New Jersey arrived at college with TikTok already calling her one of the platform's most followed athletes, and then proceeded to also be legitimately excellent at gymnastics, which the internet sometimes treats as a secondary detail but absolutely isn't. She's one of the most commercially successful college athletes in history — brand deals, magazine covers, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit — while simultaneously competing at the highest level of a sport that demands everything from its athletes. The coexistence of those two things is what makes Livvy Dunne genuinely interesting rather than just extremely visible. With 6,586 images in her library and a profile that dwarfs most professional athletes, she's demonstrated that you can be serious about your sport and serious about your brand without one undermining the other.