In a new one-minute ad for the sports betting site Novig, the actress Sydney Sweeney is dressed for about eight seconds. Well, if wearing just underpants or hockey shin guards counts as being dressed.
The ad begins with the camera trailing Sweeney in a dimly lit space before panning up to her face and zooming out. As the lights come up, viewers see Sweeney wearing nothing except two footballs held against her chest. In the next shot, she is straddling a basketball net, with only her long blonde hair to hide behind.
“No betting on wars or deaths and no politics,” she says in one shot. “Just you, your takes and sports.”
The ad, which was released online last Wednesday, led to a backlash that grew louder over the weekend, particularly from a range of female athletes, once again landing Sweeney at the center of a heated controversy. On one side, some said the actress was encouraging the objectification of female bodies and a range of female athletes said it minimized their contributions to sports.
On Friday, Gracie Kramer, a former gymnast, posted a video montage on social media with the caption: “idk what Sydney Sweeney was doing, but this is what a woman in sports looks like.” It inspired waves of others in a range of sports to do the same.
Still, others online cast Sweeney as an empowered woman doing her job, and one who is unashamed of her body.
“The left has always been the party of sexual liberation and take your clothes off and all that,” said Raquel Debono, founder of the right-leaning Make America Hot Again organization. “And now, all of a sudden, they’re really upset because a pretty girl got naked doing a sports ad.”
The controversy, though, might be the point, said Joshua Lewis, a marketing professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Novig “is a company with not much market share, and so polarizing people is a reasonable strategy,” Lewis said. “They are betting, excuse the pun, that their own audience will not be the same as the people who are most offended by the ad.”
So far, the ad has been viewed over 40 million times, and Novig, a company in which Sweeney has equity, is at least as recognizable as its competitors, Kalshi and Polymarket, for now. Ultimately, the controversy has functioned as publicity for a brand hoping to cater to men, who make up a majority of prediction market users. The company did not respond to requests for comment.
“Now I know what this random sports betting company is that I had never heard of four days ago,” Debono said.
If this dynamic rings a bell, the ad comes a little over a year since Sweeney starred in an ad for American Eagle that played with “genes” as a homophone of “jeans,” which some critics said was a nod to white supremacy.
Despite the criticism, or perhaps because of it, the ad was credited with bumping up American Eagle stock and bolstering its sales. It also became a cause célèbre on the right, including with President Trump.
Sweeney has said, in an interview with GQ magazine, that the reaction surprised her because, in her eyes, it had been nothing more than an ad for jeans. “I love jeans!” she added, chirpily. She has continued working with American Eagle this year.
The fiercest criticism of Novig’s ad came from the world of sports, specifically from female athletes.
“I’ve been over-sexualized my whole career, I’ve dealt with men only focusing on how I look and not what I’m capable of,” Kramer, the former gymnast, said in an interview, referring to comments some had made about the size of her legs or arms. “Women put in hours and years to build something that they’re proud of, and when you’re reduced to the way that you look, it’s dehumanizing.”
Her response video, which was viewed millions of times, became a kind of rallying cry for other female athletes to post videos of themselves too, skiing, running, playing basketball, water polo and more. On Monday, the British sprinter Amy Hunt, after finishing a 200-meter final, addressed Sweeney on the BBC, adding that “this is what women in sport look like.”
Sweeney, who did not respond to a request for comment, posted material on Sunday that obliquely responded to the controversy, highlighting past photo shoots in which female athletes, including Serena Williams and Sue Bird had posed without clothing for ESPN.
In a way, Sweeney has become associated with causing buzz for a brand trying to raise its profile, Katie Gatti Tassin, a co-host of the podcast Diabolical Lies and author of “Rich Girl Nation.”
In addition to Novig and American Eagle, there was an ad for the bath product brand Dr. Squatch, which produced a limited edition soap it said had been infused with Sweeney’s bath water, which raised some eyebrows.
The brands, Tassin said, booked sexy shoots with Sweeney that seemed designed to set off controversy, which then “like a Bat Signal, promptly summons the conservatives” to defend the brand.
Some of Sweeney’s supporters online say there may be extra scrutiny on Sweeney because of her association with the political right, according to Debono, who is also the founder of the communications company Public Affair Media. Sweeney is a registered Republican and, earlier this year, her lingerie brand Syrn, which she models herself, was a key partner of Stagecoach, a conservative country music festival.
The current ad lands in a political climate that has, in the past year, inspired a “Freaky Friday”-like cultural role reversal, Debono said. The liberal left, once known for sexual liberation, is painted as too “woke,” and prudish, while the right-leaning are rebranding around sexy femininity.
“The whole thing is so ridiculous,” she added. “Why do people care so much?”
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