Sydney Sweeney new ad backlash
Aiofe Cunningham reports on why actress Sydney Sweeney’s new sports ad is making women angry
American actress Sydney Sweeney has come under fire from female athletes over her new sports betting advertisement for Novig, with the campaign being accused of sexualising women.
The Novig sports betting app campaign, titled ‘Just Sports’, features Sweeney posing almost naked while using basketballs, footballs, tennis racquets and ice hockey sticks to cover her body. After the company posted the ad on Instagram, it reportedly racked up more than 47 million views just days after launching.
Sweeney - best known for TV roles in Euphoria and The White Lotus as well as her romcom film Anyone but You - is no stranger to advertising controversy. In 2025, her American Eagle campaign, ‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’, drew backlash over its repeated play on 'jeans' and 'genes', with critics arguing the campaign’s focus on Sweeney’s blonde hair, blue eyes and appearance evoked ideas of genetic superiority.
“So, they just wanted to show sports,” she says in the Novig ad, while perched topless on top of a basketball hoop and suggesting this sexualised take - also covering her breasts with footballs - is what sports really looks like now.
For women in sport, who have spent decades fighting to be taken seriously, this did not go over well.
Instead of celebrating the strength, skill and dedication that women bring to sport, the advertisement making Sweeney’s body the centre of attention caused an immediate backlash.
American gymnast Gracie Kramer (Instagram: @gracie.kramer) responded on social media, sharing footage of herself competing with the post including, “this is what a woman in sports looks like.”
Australian Olympic swimming champion Ariarne Titmus was even more blunt, calling out the advertisement as “an absolute joke” and “a kick in the face” to women who have dedicated their lives to perfecting their craft. Australian champion surfer Felicity Palmeteer also slammed the campaign and told CNN; “We want to be valued for what we can do, not what we look like.”
Her frustration is shared by many athletes who have trained for years, battled heartbreaking injuries and time away from family and friends to compete at some of the highest levels of their sports. Many critics point out that there is a difference between a woman choosing to sexualise herself and a sports advertisement using the sexualisation of a woman as its selling point. Sweeney is not an athlete, nor is she competing, demonstrating a skill or representing a sporting achievement. In this ad, it suggests the sports equipment is being used more as a prop to cover Sweeney’s nudity and not as the true focus.
Novig and Sweeney have both defended the campaign, with Sweeney describing the concept in a press release as ‘fun, confident and playful’, and Novig insisting the campaign is designed to cut through the noise, to focus “just on sports.” Sweeney is a strategic partner and equity holder in the company, meaning she has a financial stake in the campaign’s success. Not surprisingly, some online cynics have suggested she’s deliberately being provocative to make the campaign go viral.
If that was the goal, it worked. In just six days following the September 9 release of the ad, Google search interest in the brand Novig jumped from a score of one out of 100 to the maximum score of 100.
But, with Olympic champions, professional athletes and high-profile women speaking out all over social media, the long-term harm to both Sweeney and Novig could far outweigh the short-term viral moment. Online comments suggest overwhelmingly that women in sports don’t need to be made ‘more interesting’ by putting a naked woman who doesn’t play any competitive sports alongside a basketball.
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