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Sports Edge · Intelligence Desk LOUIS XIII

Olivia Dunne Signs W Brand Deal, Jake Paul Adds 24.5M Followers to Apparel Play

USC gymnast's NIL partnership marks Paul's first major NCAA athlete signing as clothing line targets Gen-Z crossover revenue.

Published May 23, 2026 Source MARCA From the chopped neck
Subject on the desk
Olivia Dunne / W Brand (Jake Paul)
SILVER · May 23, 2026
LOUIS XIII · May 23, 2026

Olivia Dunne Signs W Brand Deal, Jake Paul Adds 24.5M Followers to Apparel Play

USC gymnast's NIL partnership marks Paul's first major NCAA athlete signing as clothing line targets Gen-Z crossover revenue.

Source MARCA ↗

Olivia Dunne, the USC gymnast with 11.4 million TikTok followers and 5.1 million on Instagram, announced a name-image-likeness partnership with W brand, the apparel company founded by Jake Paul in late 2022. Terms were not disclosed. The deal was revealed through an acrobatic video posted across Dunne's social channels Thursday afternoon, immediately generating 2.8 million views within six hours.

W brand launched eighteen months ago as Paul pivoted from boxing promotion revenue into direct-to-consumer apparel. The company has signed roughly eight influencers to date, none with NCAA eligibility or college sports audience overlap. Dunne transferred to USC from LSU in May 2024 and has one season of NCAA gymnastics remaining. Her NIL valuation was pegged at $3.9 million by On3 in December, the highest among active female college athletes and third overall behind Colorado football's Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders.

The partnership gives Paul access to collegiate purchasing power at scale. Dunne's audience skews 72 percent female, ages sixteen to twenty-four, a demographic W brand has struggled to convert despite Paul's 20.8 million YouTube subscribers. Athletic apparel aimed at female Gen-Z buyers is projected to grow 8.2 percent annually through 2027, per Euromonitor. W brand's prior campaigns leaned heavily on Paul's boxing persona and male streetwear aesthetics. Dunne's involvement signals a shift toward performance-casual hybrids and female-first design.

Sponsor executives tracking NIL deals note Dunne's retention metrics. Her engagement rate sits at 4.1 percent on Instagram, nearly double the influencer category average of 2.3 percent. Brands that signed her in 2023—including Vuori, Grubhub, and American Eagle—have renewed contracts into 2025. W brand's bet is that Dunne's audience will follow product recommendations more reliably than Paul's, whose subscriber base has matured past the impulse-buy window.

The deal also reflects structural changes in NIL economics. Female athletes captured 18 percent of total NIL deal value in 2023, up from 11 percent the prior year, according to Opendorse. Gymnastics, historically underfunded relative to football and basketball, has produced three of the top ten NIL earners among women. Dunne's LSU teammate and Olympic gold medalist Haleigh Bryant signed with Athleta in September for a reported mid-six-figure sum.

W brand will release a Dunne-specific collection in late March, timed to the NCAA gymnastics postseason. The line includes leggings, sports bras, and cropped hoodies with price points between $38 and $78. Paul's team is negotiating retail placement at Foot Locker and Zumiez, according to two people familiar with the discussions. Previous W brand drops sold exclusively through the company's website, which processed roughly $14 million in revenue in 2024, per estimates from Similarweb traffic data.

Watch for USC's official merchandise revenue split. The school takes 15 percent of NIL apparel sales that feature university marks, per its standard licensing agreement. Dunne's announcement video did not include USC branding, suggesting W brand structured the deal to avoid licensing fees. If the March collection performs above $2 million in first-week sales—a threshold Dunne's previous collaborations have cleared—expect Paul to pursue additional NCAA athlete signings before the fall football season.

Paul's boxing schedule offers a secondary promotional vehicle. He fights former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley in a rematch July 12 in Tampa, with a projected pay-per-view buy rate of 650,000 to 800,000 households. Dunne is expected to appear in pre-fight content, extending W brand visibility beyond her organic reach.

The takeaway
Dunne's **24.5M combined followers** give W brand its first real shot at female Gen-Z apparel revenue outside Paul's boxing audience.
nilapparelinfluencer marketingjake paulolivia dunnencaa gymnastics
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