Livvy Dunne Passionately Testifies That NCAA Settlement Undervalues Her Worth as ‘Highest-Earning Female Athlete’

Livvy Dunne gave a passionate testimony during a final hearing regarding the NCAA’s $2.8 billion settlement.

Dunne, 22, testified before Judge Claudia Wilken via Zoom on Monday, April 7, where the LSU gymnast argued that as the “highest-earning female athlete since the NIL rules changed,” her value was estimated too low under the name, image, likeness (NIL) formula.

“This settlement doesn’t come close to recognizing the value I lost,” Dunne said during the testimony, according to Forbes and the Associated Press. “My value existed before NIL was legal. I don’t need to guess what I might have earned, I know. I had a growing platform and millions of followers before I ever stepped foot onto a college campus,” she continued.

Dunne said she had brands “interested” and followers “engaged” well before she was able to make money. “Demand was real,” she added.

“Had NIL rules not restricted me, my value would’ve started higher, scaled faster and grown even more,” Dunne told Judge Wilken on Monday, noting that she was already “amassing a large following” as a high school student, “but couldn’t earn money without compromising my NCAA eligibility.”

“That lost momentum matters, and it’s been ignored,” Dunne continued.

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The gymnast, who will graduate from LSU in the coming months, said the NCAA’s settlement “uses old logic to calculate modern value” in her testimony. “It takes a narrow snapshot of a still maturing market and freezes it, ignoring the trajectory we were on and the deals we lost and the future we could have had,” she explained.

Dunne also took issue with the NCAA’s lack of “transparency” in the NIL process. “We were told to trust the system but the system didn’t communicate,” she said, claiming she has sent “multiple emails” and received “vague” answers back. “Critical information wasn’t available until the very last day,” Dunne said.

“We just deserve more than an estimate,” she added. “We deserve to be heard, to be seen and to be compensated for the value we created. Not just the value the system was willing to measure.”

NCAA attorney Rakesh Kilaru reportedly told Judge Wilken they will share the feedback with his clients, but said he wanted “to really reiterate” that it’s been “a long road to get to this point” and that changing the formula requires “a lot of schools to approve it,” per the AP.

“There’s a lot of pieces of this settlement. …. So I cannot make you any promises we’re going to say anything is different because we think what we did is appropriate and enough but we’ll take it under advisement and come back,” said Kilaru.

College athletes who played sports between 2016 and 2024 that weren’t entitled to the full NIL benefits would be awarded back damages in the settlement. Jeffrey Kessler, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said 88,104 athletes have filed claims to participate in the settlement and another 30,775 have indicated they will file claims, per the AP.