The NCAA realm is buzzing with the House settlement of NIL. The attorneys general of Tennessee, Virginia, and other states filed a lawsuit earlier over the NCAA’s rules that prohibited NIL compensation for its recruits. The settlement was completed via a signed term sheet that was filed on Friday with the US District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, Gainesville. 

And it is exactly the settlement that Olivia Dunne is not complying with. Soon after the news and details of the House Settlement emerged, the LSU gymnast hit back at the settlement, raising a ton of questions. The copy of Dunne’s letter objecting to the settlement has been shared by an X account. In the letter, Dunne wrote, “There is a lack of transparency to how the calculations are being made for the estimate of lost NIL opportunities and if the same formula is being applied to all athletes across every sport. If I were to hire a law firm to represent me individually in this matter I would want to know how the valuation of damages was calculated specifically to me. This seems not to be the case.”

Dunne further went on to say that there were discrepancies regarding the legal fees. Also, the estimated allocation link under lost NIL did not seem to work for Olivia Dunne. However, she mentioned that it ultimately did work very recently. Furthermore, another area of Dunne’s grievance was regarding the fact that no athletes were involved in the discussion by the NCAA while reaching a conclusion about the settlement. Such behavior was, according to Olivia Dunne, the continuation of “the long tradition of shutting athletes out of having a voice in a legal issue where they hold a financial interest.”

And this was not all! Dunne also pointed out the fact that the settlement overlooks a vital part of the athlete’s interest. As mentioned in her letter, the LSU heartthrob stated that the settlement fails to pinpoint the exact value of an athlete if the NCAA’s rules against college athletes’s earnings did not exist in the first place. This is because of the fact that during the time the restrictions were in place, there was a huge shift in the business model of the market. 

With so many vital points being addressed by Olivia Dunne, she ended her letter with an earnest request. The LSU gymnast asked the authorities to let either her or her lawyer be present during the final approval hearing. Now, as things look quite heated on the NCAA front, this is not the only controversial statement that Olivia Dunne has made in recent times. 

Olivia Dunne speaks up about poor judging in NCAA gymnastics

Olivia Dunne is one of the pivotal figures in women’s gymnastics. Thus, probably she feels it is upon her to elevate and contribute to the growth of the sport as a whole. Unfortunately, that has not been the case this year as the NCAA gymnastics season kicked off. Despite the best efforts of the gymnasts, the crowd turnover has been really low in the games. This is quite surprising, as the excitement levels of the audience seemed to skyrocket regarding women’s gymnastics after Simone Biles led Team USA to an Olympic gold medal. 

Looking at the plummeting interest, Dunne on January 26th took to her X account and bashed the judges. She opined that the biggest reason for the crowd turning away from the sport was the excessive number of deductions. She stated that the audiences love to watch Perfect 10s, and in order to keep them interested, the judges needed to stop putting in so many deductions frequently. 

Dunne even compared the scenario to an NFL game, stating, “Too many deductions taken at a judge’s discretion feels the same as watching a basketball game that’s constantly interrupted with penalties or a football game with flags on every play. At some point it feels negative and loses the entertainment factor that draws the crowd in.” However, this take of Dunne was not well received by the fans. They soon lashed out at her opinion and mentioned that the lack of perfect 10s was not the reason why the interest was dropping. Many came forward to express that it is the popularity of athletes and not the perfect 10 that drives the audience. The perfect example of this was when nearly a crowd of nearly 7647 entered Pauley Pavilion on January 25th just to catch a glimpse of Jordan Chiles’ performance.

Thus, with controversy wrapping Olivia Dunne early on in the NCAA season, it now remains to be seen what happens next.