The US actor Sydney Sweeney is facing a backlash from female Olympians and other athletes, who have accused her of demeaning and sexualising women’s sports by appearing in a controversial advert for a sports prediction company. In the viral commercial for Novig, which was viewed more than 22 million times in the first two days of its release, Sweeney’s nude body is covered by footballs, basketballs, and other sports equipment, as she tells users they can bet on “just sports”. After saying “sports” nine times, she appears topless on a pool table, before saying: “You can’t trade this, I just look good here.” The advert has led to a storm of protest led by the British sprinter Amy Hunt, who won four European Championship gold medals last month.
After finishing fourth in the 200m at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship on Sunday evening, Hunt said: “Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like: 21.4. Hard work, blood, sweat, tears. This is a beautiful evening.” That was a reference to Melissa Jefferson-Wooden’s winning time of 21.47 seconds, the fourth-fastest women’s 200m, and Hunt went on to reveal the painful realities she and other sports stars faced.
It’s not sexy all the time, definitely. Even turning up to this championship, my period started yesterday, so that’s not really ideal, and that’s not ever what you try to really plan for.” The British Olympic cycling gold medallist Sophie Capewell was also deeply critical of the advert. In Australia, there was also widespread fury with the four-time Olympic swimming champion Ariarne Titmus leading the charge.
Sweeney appeared to respond to the criticism by posting a series of images of prominent female and male athletes posing naked for magazine shoots, including Serena Williams and the footballer Megan Rapinoe and the basketball player Sue Bird. The public relationship consultant Mark Borkowski, who has worked with everyone from Mikhail Gorbachev to Diego Maradona, said he felt the advert was “cynical soft porn”, but that the controversy would benefit Novig “given the number of eyeballs on it”. Borkowski said: “Sex still sells.
And the outrage, the culture war argument gets you one thing: enormous reach.” He also questioned whether Sweeney, who has starred in several successful TV series and films including Euphoria, The White Lotus and The Housemaid, may one day regret her decision. And this sort of promotion can come back to haunt people.” The advert has been defended by Jacob Fortinsky, the founder and chief executive of Novig, which launched last month. He added that Sweeney had approached the company about an equity partnership and helped to craft its message.
This is not the first time an advert featuring Sweeney has attracted controversy. Last year American Eagle’s “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” campaign used a play on “jeans” and “genes”, including references to the blue-eyed actor’s inherited traits, sparked a culture war, with some saying it invoked eugenics. Several months after the controversy erupted, Sweeney said she had been unaware of it as she had been filming Euphoria.
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