British sprinter Amy Hunt has joined a growing group of elite female athletes criticizing Sydney Sweeney’s provocative new advertising campaign for sports prediction market Novig. The actress appears nude or nearly nude in the commercial, using footballs, basketballs, tennis rackets and other sporting equipment to cover herself while acting out a series of sports-themed scenes.
Hunt spoke about the campaign after finishing fourth in the 200-meter final at the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest. The British sprinter ran a season-best 22.10 seconds before using her post-race interview to contrast elite competition with the imagery used in the Novig commercial.
“Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like,” Hunt told BBC Sport. Referring to the extraordinary 21.47-second winning performance by Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, Hunt pointed to the muscles, hard work, blood, sweat and tears behind elite athletics.
Hunt is far from alone. Dozens of female athletes have criticized the campaign, arguing that it sexualizes women in a sporting context rather than focusing on their performance, training and accomplishments. Australian Olympic champions have been particularly vocal.
Retired Australian swimming great Ariarne Titmus described the advertisement as “an absolute joke” and said she was infuriated by it. Titmus, a four-time Olympic gold medalist, said the campaign was a “kick in the face” to women who have spent years perfecting their craft and to women who value sport for teamwork, friendship, dedication, excellence and unity.
Titmus also questioned why the commercialization of women’s bodies remains so common in sports-related advertising and asked what that message teaches young men and women.
Australian water polo Olympic silver medalist Tilly Kearns posted her own response, saying she strongly disliked Sweeney’s new sports advertisement. Kearns accompanied her comments with footage highlighting actual athletic competition and training.
Australian boxer Skye Nicolson, the WBC bantamweight champion, also joined the criticism. Nicolson acknowledged that the controversy was likely generating exactly the kind of attention Novig wanted, but nevertheless urged companies to stop sexualizing women in sport. Australian swimmer Lani Pallister and Hockeyroos goalkeeper Joc Bartram were among several other athletes who posted their own responses.
The backlash developed into a broader social media trend in which female athletes posted footage of themselves training and competing under variations of the message, “This is what women in sport look like.” American gymnast Gracie Kramer was among the first prominent athletes to use the format, helping it spread internationally.
Despite the criticism, the campaign has attracted enormous attention. ABC News reported that the Novig advertisement had been viewed more than 33 million times on Instagram by September 14.
The commercial is part of Novig’s “Just Sports” campaign. Unlike prediction markets that allow users to trade contracts tied to politics, elections and other world events, Novig says its platform is devoted exclusively to sporting outcomes.
Sweeney’s relationship with Novig goes considerably beyond that of a celebrity hired to appear in an advertisement. The company announced that she had joined Novig as both a strategic partner and an equity holder. Novig CEO and co-founder Jacob Fortinsky said Sweeney helped bring the company’s message to life in a way that would be difficult to ignore.
“The campaign was about embracing a fun idea,” Sweeney said when it was announced. She described the concept as an attempt to cut through other prediction-market noise and concentrate exclusively on sports, using “confidence, humor and a playful edge.”
Sweeney has not directly answered every criticism raised by the athletes. However, amid the backlash, she posted several photographs from ESPN’s former Body Issue to her Instagram Stories. The images included nude or partially nude athletes such as Serena Williams, Ronda Rousey, Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe, as well as male athletes.
The posts appeared to offer a counterargument to criticism of nudity in a sporting context, although Sweeney did not explicitly say that was their purpose. Critics have drawn a distinction between ESPN’s Body Issue, which featured athletes displaying the physiques developed through their sports, and a commercial using sexualized sports imagery to promote a prediction market.
Sweeney’s financial interest in Novig also adds another dimension to the controversy. Federal Trade Commission guidance states that material relationships between endorsers and advertisers generally should be clearly and conspicuously disclosed when consumers would not otherwise be expected to understand that relationship. Such relationships can include payments, business relationships and ownership interests.
The Novig dispute comes roughly a year after Sweeney became the center of another advertising controversy involving American Eagle’s “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” campaign. The campaign played on the similarity between the words “jeans” and “genes,” prompting some critics to argue that imagery involving a blonde, blue-eyed actress and references to genetics carried uncomfortable associations with eugenics.
American Eagle rejected that interpretation and said the campaign was about jeans and personal confidence. Sweeney later said she had been surprised by the reaction and rejected the ideological views some people had attached to the advertisement.
The Novig controversy, however, centers on a different issue. The criticism is primarily coming from athletes who argue that decades of progress toward having female competitors recognized for their strength, skill and achievements can be undermined when sport is once again marketed primarily through sexual imagery.
Supporters of Sweeney have pushed back, arguing that appearing nude or embracing sexuality does not inherently diminish women or women’s athletics. That disagreement has turned what was intended as an attention-grabbing advertisement for a relatively young prediction-market company into a much larger debate about advertising, sexuality and how women are portrayed in modern sport.
IMAGE: This photograph was taken by Glenn Francis (User:Toglenn) and released under the license(s) CC4