Quinn Ewers‘ decision to reject an eight million dollar NIL offer to pursue a career in the NFL gives the LSU Tigers’ Olivia Dunne a much needed break as she plummets down the rankings, but how?
The Texas Longhorns’ quarterback helped his team to the Cotton Bowl but he and his team were beaten 28-14 by the Ohio State Buckeyes in the College Football Playoffs semifinals, in what was likely his final game.
With a relatively weak draft class and the threat of Arch Manning behind him, the 21-year-old intends to declare for the upcoming NFL Draft to secure his spot in professional football sooner rather than later.
Part of accomplishing that dream means he had to deny an $8m transfer offer to continue his quest, which means he fell down the rankings according to On3.com, providing Dunne with positive NIL news for once.
Related:
- CFP National Championship 2025: Date, start time, location and everything you need to know
- CFP National Championship Halftime Show 2025: Who is performing this year and all the details
- College Football Playoff winners list: check out every National Championship winner updated until today
- CFP National Championship Prize Money: How much money does the college football winner get?
- CFP National Championship Gatorade shower 2025: Color, how did the tradition start and more
Dunne was ranked as the second-most valuable college athlete as recently as December 2024 but now the gymnast finds herself languishing as low as seventh, partially due to the Supreme Court’s impending ban of TikTok.
Whilst her value has remained fairly steady at $4.2m, she has simply been eclipsed by the likes of Manning and basketball’s Cooper Flagg along with other stars from the thriving NCAA sports scene.
Could the TikTok ban hurt Dunne?
Dunne is now back up to fifth as of January 18 after the Colorado Buffaloes‘ Heisman Trophy-winning Travis Hunter disappeared from the list as he heads to the NFL, and likewise with Ewers too.
The 22-year-old LSU Tigers‘ national champion now finds herself only behind Manning, Shedeur Sanders (football), Carson Beck (football) and finally Flagg. She remains $400,000 ahead of AJ Dybantsa, who plays in basketball.
However, the impending TikTok ban could be a game-changer for the star, and not in a good way. With 8.1 million followers on the app, nobody else comes close. Sanders is only on 600,000 followers by comparison.
So for her image and marketing power, the Supreme Court ban could severely impact her value when it comes to selling and promoting endorsements and products and her overall traffic and attention on the internet.
The Supreme Court is banning the app on the grounds it could potentially be used by the Chinese government to spy on United States data, despite TikTok being a private app owned by ByteDance.