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Olivia Dunne Speaks Out About Gymnastics Scoring, Empty Seats At Stadiums

by Staff Reporter

January 29, 202548 Comments

Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

LSU's Olivia Dunne took to social media this week to voice her concerns about the NCAA scoring at Gymnastics meets and the empty seats she see's while competing.

quote:
I am sitting here watching NCAA gymnastics and the empty seats are concerning. I care deeply about the growth in women’s sports especially in the NCAA. If you want fans to enjoy the sport and increase viewership, you have to look at what makes the crowds go crazy! People understand what a perfect 10 is and want people who do things that look great to be rewarded. 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. The number of questions I am currently getting from fans about the scoring is significant enough for me to share this concern. I love the art and intricacy of gymnastics but let’s get more eyes on the sport!

This is not about LSU this is about the sport. I’m in my 5th year and I have an audience of casual fans so maybe I’m in a unique position to see what is happening with fans differently than people just looking at attendance numbers. Fans are confused. I also spend time raising money for female athletes and will always advocate for athletes. Making changes that can impact the entertainment value will affect athletes financially as well. Female sports in the NCAA have to focus on building crowd engagement to continue to get revenue support for the athletes.

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Filed Under: LSU Sports

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Originally published on TigerDroppings.com

48 Comments

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imjustafatkid•3 months

Women's sports suck.

imjustafatkid•3 months

Women's sports are only as minimally important as they are because of government intervention. No one actually cares.

bdavids09•4 months

I hate how people act like it’s sexist women’s athletes don’t make as much. Even women don’t watch women’s sports. They watch the men more. If all women started watching women’s sports they would make more than men would. But nobody watches so just shut up.

Bandits58•4 months

No one cares about women’s sports !! Go away!!

Recoveringcajun•4 months

Dear Livvy: The problem is the product. People pay for tickets and spend their time watching so that they can see the best being the best against strong competition. Female athletes will always offer a product that is not, in fact, the best; it’s merely best in class. In a world of limited time and resources, why would anyone pay and take time to see women miss layups when they can pay and take time to see men perform acrobatic slam dunks?

Women’s athletics is and always will be a sport of niche or limited appeal.

24chevrolet48•4 months

Well Spoken

JackieTreehorn•4 months

It’s those damn Bammer refs

TheRouxGuru•4 months

Perform in a thong livvy, and watch the arenas fill up

Vernonbrew22•4 months

Thank u sir. For you have redeemed yourself on behalf of 99 percent of the males. LOL

Recoveringcajun•4 months

The main pull for female sports has always been and always will be directly proportional to the sex appeal being offered. No amount of social engineering will change this timeless reality

OrangeCurtainTiger•4 months

A toenail touched the beam, that will be a tenth of a point deduction. Scoring is crazy.

Davy•4 months

I've got some ideas about how she could increase attendance.

Davy•4 months

While made in jest, I regret the implied crassness of this comment and retract it.

Davy•4 months

Her points are thoughtful and well-articulated and demonstrate that she is much more than her beauty. My comment ignored that to the detriment of the discourse in this post.

Geaux Guy•4 months

Wardrobe malfunction

Show 2 more replies in this conversation

OchoDedos•4 months

Gymnastics isn't a sport. It's a popularity contest judged by old ladies and Homo's with predetermined biases

Davy•4 months

It's one of the oldest sports dating back to the Greeks.

HoustonGumbeauxGuy•4 months

You sound like a total idiot.

OrangeCurtainTiger•4 months

It's more of a sport than Nascar

mule74•4 months

I’ve always expressed the opinion that gymnastics is not a sport. That is not to say that gymnast are not incredible athletes. They are. However, I think that any activity that cannot be judged objectively cannot be considered a sport. Gymnastics, dancing, cheerleading, synchronized swimming, etc. Those are not sports. Those are performances.

LSU$$$•4 months

i kind of agree. If it takes an expert to tell you who won, then it's not an actual competition between combatants. But, lately, you could say the same thing about boxing

Timeoday•4 months

Can you imagine two opposing football teams containing only former gymnasts on the rosters and the athleticism they could display?

If not, check out Cirque du Soleil and get back whether you feel they show athleticism.

GEAUX4•4 months

He said they were incredible athletes, but that a sport should not be able to be decided based on subjective judgement. Learn to read

Show 1 last reply in this conversation

Play_Neck•4 months

Livvy for comish

TDsngumbo•4 months

Just as udtiger said, scoring in gymnastics is so biased it hurts. It needs to be black or white and surely with AI we can come up with some way for AI to judge instead of having a human bias involved. Just look at Chio, Bryant, and a couple of the others' scores during that Quad meet at Oklahoma a while back -- there was BLATENT bias on the part of the judges there. Something has to change and I stand firmly behind Livvy in erect position on this one.

HurricaneCamille•4 months

I will never understand why people are so cruel toward her. Jealousy? She is highly intelligent, earned her degree, participated on a national championship team, has made national commercials, has millions of social media followers, and made quite a lot of money. She isn't covered in tattoos or green hair. She isn't racial, political, or entitled. The girls works hard. What we need in this nation of weakness are more like her.

Geaux62•4 months

Jealousy. Nothing more.

JakeRStephenes•4 months

She's just a bit of a hypocrite. She says she wants to empower young women, while earning her money using her sexuality. Just be up front about it.

CrystalPreserves•4 months

She’s popular due to simp kids. She isn’t known for standing out as a generational elite gymnast among her ncaa peers. She’s known for taking carefully curated skimpy thirst trapping selfies all day and then using the thirst trap to trap Skenes and secure her future. His net worth is 20x hers at minimum.

Show 4 more replies in this conversation

udtiger•4 months

As someone who had a daughter in gymnastics, the subjective nature ot the scoring will never not be infuriating

TopWaterTiger •4 months

Agreed. I just can't get into because of the scoring. Too many variables and when a team like LSU lost last weekend by percentage points, it doesn't make sense.

jpainter6174•4 months

Concur

BlackPot•4 months

It's gymnastics man. Parents of the gymnasts will be there, and people with younger kids that are interested in gymnastics will be there. Even if you're a horn dog that wants to go see the girls, that's got to get old after 12 minutes. It just is what it is. Every 4 years people are interested for a week and we move on.

lsusteve1•4 months

Well, you couldn’t be more wrong

aTmTexas Dillo•4 months

If people are interested, they will watch it. On the other hand.....

justjoe906•4 months

Attendance is down because she went public with her boyfriend, all the little hard-legs not chasing behind her like in the past.

Tigerfan257•4 months

you are dumb af

Yeti_Chaser•4 months

Idk shite about gymnastics but she's dead on in regards to basketball

WillieD•4 months

Then she made her point

Bert Macklin FBI•4 months

I get what she is saying but making it easier to get a 10 isn’t going to make the sport better. Honestly it would make the sport worse because a score of 10 wouldn’t be as high of an achievement.

If they really want to make it better, they need to have a difficulty adjustment like the Olympics. This way Oklahoma can’t do extremely basic routines perfectly and get better scores than LSU doing difficult routines with slight deductions.

wallowinit•4 months

Like Alabama in football playing Little Sisters of The Poor for out of conference play?