LOS ANGELES, United States – Female athletes, including Olympic champions, are criticizing an advertising campaign starring actress Sydney Sweeney, saying its sexualized portrayal of sports undermines the work and achievements of women athletes.
The campaign promotes Novig, a sports prediction platform, and features Sweeney wearing little or no clothing while posing with equipment from sports including tennis, basketball, baseball, football and hockey. The advertisement repeatedly emphasizes Novig’s focus on sports before ending with Sweeney making a provocative reference to her appearance.
The campaign has spread widely online and prompted criticism from athletes in the United States, Australia and Britain.
Four-time Olympic swimming gold medalist Ariarne Titmus described the advertisement as deeply offensive to women who have devoted years to competitive sport. British sprinter Amy Hunt also criticized the campaign after competing at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest.
Athletes challenge the campaign’s message
Hunt used a post-race interview to contrast the advertisement’s imagery with the physical demands of elite competition.
After finishing fourth in the women’s 200 meters, she pointed to the winning time and the athletic performance behind it before saying, in reference to Sweeney’s campaign, that this is what women in sport look like.
Titmus was similarly direct. She argued that sexualizing women’s sport diminishes the dedication, teamwork and competitive achievement that athletes say they have spent years establishing.
Other athletes, including former U.S. gymnast Gracie Kramer, Australian hockey player Joc Bartram and Olympic athletes Lani Pallister and Tilly Kearns, also criticized the campaign.
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Their objections center less on Sweeney’s decision to appear in a provocative advertisement than on the use of women’s sports as the setting for sexualized marketing.
Sweeney appears to respond
Sweeney has not issued a detailed public statement addressing the athletes’ criticism. Instead, she appeared to respond on Instagram by sharing images from ESPN’s Body Issue, which has featured nude or partially nude portraits of elite male and female athletes.
The apparent response points to a broader question in the controversy: whether sexualized imagery involving athletes can be presented as an expression of confidence and athletic identity, or whether the commercial use of such imagery reinforces the objectification that female athletes have spent years challenging.
The Novig campaign was released as the company seeks to establish its sports-prediction business. Sweeney is also an investor in the company, giving her a financial interest in the campaign beyond her role as its featured performer.
Novig has defended the campaign’s creative approach, describing it as a playful concept designed to focus attention on sports.
The controversy has nevertheless shifted much of the public discussion away from the company’s product and toward the way women and women’s sports are represented in advertising.
For the athletes criticizing the campaign, that distinction matters. Women’s sports have gained wider audiences, sponsorships and commercial attention in recent years, and they argue that marketing should reinforce athletic achievement rather than return to imagery that places women’s bodies at the center of the story.
The debate is likely to continue as the advertisement circulates online, but the immediate backlash has made one issue clear: the growing commercial value of women’s sports is also intensifying scrutiny of how female athletes are portrayed when brands seek attention.
Reporting Credit: Novig — campaign and company information; athlete statements and public posts — reactions from Ariarne Titmus, Amy Hunt, Gracie Kramer and other athletes; ESPN — background on its Body Issue featuring professional athletes.
