Jay Clark cracks Livvy Dunne joke regarding her NIL income

On Saturday, LSU gymnastics hoisted its first national championship trophy in program history. The program has been a trailblazer in the NIL space, specifically led by social media sensation Olivia “Livvy” Dunne.

Dunne boasts a $3.7 million On3 NIL Valuation, the third-highest of any collegiate athlete. After the confetti fell on Saturday, LSU gymnastics head coach Jay Clark pulled back the curtain on how his program deals with NIL while cracking a couple jokes about Dunne.

“NIL was such a foreign thing to us a couple years ago and in many ways it still is,” Clark said. “There’s not a whole lot that I could tell you except that we navigated it as we can. The kids are very much in charge of their own entity.

“We’re still very kind of old-fashioned in the way that we go about building our team and the conversations that we have. I don’t want to get involved in their NIL stuff. I want to be their coach. I did joke with Liv one time when she wasn’t doing well. One day, I said, ‘How do you want me to handle this since you make 10 times what I make?’ But beyond that, there’s just not a whole lot of conversation about it.”

Clark isn’t far off. The fourth-year head coach reportedly earns $275,000 a year from the school. With sponsorships from from Vuori Clothing, American Eagle, Plant Fuel, Bartleby and others, Dunne can easily match that number.

Regarded as “the most followed NCAA athlete on social media,” Dunne boasts over 12.4 million followers between her Instagram, X and TikTok accounts. She has amassed over 350 million likes on the latter, and even appeared in a feature of the 2023 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition.

Livvy Dunne is a pioneer in the NIL space. However, judging from Clark’s comments, it’s appears she’s mostly been a self-made woman.

“It’s their own business as much as you and I wouldn’t necessarily exchange how much money we make at our professions,” Clark said. “They want to be teammates and they care about each other and it’s a separate thing completely from what we do day to day. I’m proud of them. I’m glad they are able to capitalize on NIL in a sport that doesn’t have a professional league to go to next.

“It’s wonderful that these women get to capitalize on something that they have done since they were toddlers in many cases, and this was their shot at being able to do that at LSU.”