In early September 2026, the sports-betting platform Novig launched a one-minute commercial that has dominated social feeds. The spot features American actress Sydney Sweeney draped only in various pieces of sports equipment, her body otherwise uncovered, while a voice-over declares the service as “just sports” and distances itself from politics or violence. The ad, timed for the start of the football season, positions Sweeney not just as a celebrity ambassador but as an equity partner, a move the company says is meant to “cut through the noise” and keep the focus on sport.
What the ad looks like and why it sparked outrage
Visually, the commercial is a series of slow pans across Sweeney’s silhouette, each time substituting clothing with a basketball, a tennis racket, a football, or a pair of boxing gloves. Apart from a brief moment where she wears underwear bottoms, the rest of the frame is intentionally provocative. Critics argue that the piece leans heavily on the male gaze using a woman’s body to sell a product that has nothing to do with her athletic credentials. Novig’s own press release framed the campaign as “fun” and “playful,” yet many female athletes see it as a regression to a long-standing pattern of sexualising women in sport.
Athlete backlash across disciplines
The reaction exploded on Instagram, TikTok and other platforms as women from track, swimming, gymnastics, rugby and water-polo posted their own training clips. British sprinter Amy Hunt fresh off a season-best 22.10 seconds in the 200 m final at the Ultimate Championship in Budapest, responded in a BBC interview, saying, “Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like” and highlighted the contrast between raw effort – “muscles, hard work, blood, sweat, tears” – and the ad’s glossy nudity.
American gymnast Gracie Kramer was the first to launch the counter-trend, sharing a montage of her own routine with the caption, “I don’t know what Sydney Sweeney was doing, but this is what women in sport look like.” She later told BBC World Service that she never anticipated the response; her goal was simply to remind viewers that women’s athleticism cannot be reduced to a marketing gimmick.
Olympic swimming champion Ariarne Titmus called the spot “a kick in the face to every woman who has dedicated her life to perfecting her craft” and questioned how a market can still profit from the sexualisation of a woman’s body. British cyclist Sophie Capewell MBE added that the campaign offers a “very specific picture of women around sport” and wondered why a naked actress, rather than a genuine athlete, became the face of the brand.
Rugby union players Lisa Neumann and Ellie Boatman as well as Australian water-polo Olympian Tilly Kearns posted videos of themselves training, each captioning the posts with messages that denounced the ad’s focus on appearance over performance. Kearns wrote, “I absolutely hate Sydney Sweeney’s new sports ad – we’re doing so much worse than we imagined too.”
Broader context: objectification and the fight for representation
The dispute is not isolated. Gymnasts, who often compete in form-fitting leotards, have long reported receiving “demeaning and objectifying” comments from male spectators. Kramer explained that being objectified throughout her career gave her the resolve to speak out now, emphasizing that the ad perpetuates a narrative that has plagued women in sport for decades.
Canadian skier and 2026 Olympian Cassidy Gray labeled the campaign “senseless” and “idiotic,” arguing it erases years of effort to have female athletes taken seriously. UK runner Mary McCarthy posted, “We do not need to sexualise women in sport,” echoing a sentiment shared across continents.
Even the Female Athlete Project, an Australian platform founded by Olympic gold-medallist Chloe Dalton, condemned the ad, noting that it “fits so much misogyny in 40 seconds” and fails to represent the diverse realities of women in sport.
In response, Sweeney posted an Instagram story that juxtaposed her own nude frame from the commercial with historic ESPN photos of athletes posing without clothing, attempting to frame the discussion as one of artistic freedom rather than exploitation. Neither she nor Novig provided further comment when approached by media outlets.
The wave of athlete-driven content has turned the conversation from a single advertisement to a larger debate about how women’s bodies are used to sell products unrelated to sport. As more athletes share training footage, personal stories and stark statistics about gender bias, the message is clear: the narrative surrounding women in sport must shift from visual spectacle to genuine achievement.
