Is Sydney Sweeney’s Ad Really About “Just Sports”? - The Controversy Behind the new Novig Commercial
“Muscles. Hard work. Sweat, blood, tears.” Stated professional sprinter Amy Hunt to describe what female sports look like as a response to Sydney Sweeney’s latest advertisement. For female athletes, their body becomes a result of their hard work and dedication. But in Novig’s recent ad, the female body becomes something else: a marketing tool. Sweeney, like every other woman, has the right to choose what she does with her body, but when that body becomes the centerpiece of sports advertisement, a question emerges: when does representation become sexualization?
Novig is a sports betting app that, in partnership with Sydney Sweeney, recently published a commercial that shows the actress posing nearly nude with sports gear while repeating the words “just sports.” The advertisement received significant backlash, particularly from female athletes who argued that it reinforces the sexualization of women in sports. Retired U.S. gymnast Gracie Kramer described the ad as “a massive step backward,” while professional surfer Felicity Palmateer expressed “absolute utter disbelief” at how the 42-second commercial could retrograde women’s sports. “We want to be valued for what we can do, not what we look like,” Palmateer said.
In response to the negative repercussions, Sweeney posted references to past issues of the ESPN body issue in her instagram. The issue was discontinued in 2019, and contained a series of images posted annually to celebrate athletes' bodies and emphasize the point that “every body has a story.” Sydney’s reply aimed to address the attacks she had received by showing that people did not complain when “the same thing” was done by ESPN. The issue in drawing this parallel, however, is that the controversy in Novig’s advertisement did not simply emerge because the actress was shown in states of undress, but because she used her body to sell a product, reducing the role of women in sports to sexualization.
In addressing the situation, former Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Emanuel Acho explained that the purpose of the Body Issue, differently from the commercial, was to celebrate what it looks like to be an elite athlete. "They're celebrating, maybe, the lack of curves," he remarked. "They're celebrating the broad shoulders for a woman. They're celebrating the biceps and the triceps that society doesn't necessarily celebrate women as having. They say, 'Oh, you look too masculine. You look too manly.' ESPN's The Body Issue is celebrating men's and women's bodies."
We live in a society where it has become extremely common for girls to avoid playing certain sports or going to the gym in fear of looking “too bulky” or “too masculine.” This standard is exactly what the ESPN body issue aimed to erase — an objective that is also carried by thousands of female athletes around the world. And Sweeney’s commercial, in mere 42 seconds, did exactly the opposite. The video highlights what it looks like “to be feminine” and “hot”, objectifying women in a sports context in a way that both trivializes women athletes and discourages young girls from starting an athletic career.
This issue becomes even greater as such advertisements are aimed at a male audience, making this sexualization become normal, and even somewhat encouraged in their eyes. The problem of objectification of women athletes to men becomes evident in the real world, creating trouble among female runners. Data from the magazine Runner’s World reports that 43% of 2,533 female respondents have experienced harassment while running, while out of 2,137 male respondents only 4% did. Furthermore, a Report From Band Rio Grande do Sul shows that during the first months of 2025 in Porto Alegre, 85% women reported to have stopped running on the streets due to fear of sexual harassment. The sexualization of women goes beyond finding someone attractive, it created such high levels of fear that females stopped practicing activities because it put them in vulnerable positions to unwanted sexual advancements.
Ultimately, the issue is not whether women should have the right to display their body, it is about what these bodies are representing and being used to sell; there is a huge difference between using a women’s body to celebrate strength and as a marketing tool. When sports advertisements begin to prioritize what a woman looks like over what she can do, representation begins to turn into sexualization. Female athletes work hard hours every day, and their dedication should not be recognized purely for their appearance, but rather as evidence of their strength, hard work, and dedication. The issue with Sydney Sweeney’s advertisement goes far beyond a simple commercial; it raises a larger question about what kind of women in sports we should normalize.
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