By Sandra Abrantes
Multimedia Coordinator & Editorial Cartoonist
For the entirety of history, women have been undermined, objectified and not taken seriously. This is especially true within sports, as female athletes or other women in the industry have to work much harder to be recognized.
Actress Sydney Sweeney, known for her roles in the show “Euphoria’ and films like “The Housemaid” and “Anyone But You,” has recently partnered with Novig, a sports trading company. The ad features Sweeney, posing nude in a variety of positions, with various sports equipment. It has had an incredibly large impact on female athletes and Olympians specifically, many of whom have made statements regarding the damage it is doing to the preexisting stigma surrounding women in sports.
In an interview with CNN, Australian surfer Felicity Palmateer made a statement regarding the ad, her reaction to it being, “Incredibly disappointing, like, how far you can put women’s sports backwards in the space of a 40-second commercial.” She went on to discuss how the hypersexualized content of the ad is damaging to young females getting into sports and other women in general.
Not only is the advertisement incredibly harmful to women at large, but it is also actively harming its target audience: young men.
Statistically, young men are the target audience for this ad, and using a nude woman to promote sports gambling is only expanding the ever-increasing gambling and porn addictions rising amongst these men. Addiction Resource identifies that roughly 69% of men in the U.S. view online porn each year.
Statistics from Addiction Help reveal that on a worldwide scale, men are 3.4 times more likely than women to gamble at a problem level. According to Sienna Research Institute, in a survey released on April 13, 2026, 27% of Americans and half of all men, ages 18-49 say they have an active account with an online sports book.
These facts do not go unnoticed by marketing professionals, who exploit this to take advantage of consumers.
In late 2024, an advertisement featuring Sweeney partnering with Dr. Squatch was released and caused a similar stir of unease. This advertisement featured a naked Sydney Sweeney in a bathtub saying “Hello, you dirty little boys. Are you interested in my body…wash?” The ad then goes on to promote Dr. Squatch body wash, with Sweeney saying “It isn’t for boys. It’s for men.”
With Dr. Squatch being a men’s soap and hygiene brand, having Sweeney be the promoter and main focal point of the commercial was a perpetuation of the long-time marketing scheme of selling sex. This same strategy is used in her newest advertisement with Novig.
Using Sweeney’s body as the center of attention for the advertisement is purposeful. It is a way to make sports betting and gambling even more attractive.
In other Novig ads, there is a male-centered focus, primarily featuring male athletes playing while a male sports announcer promotes the app. The only advertisement with a front-facing woman was Sydney Sweeney’s recent nude ad.
It should not be socially acceptable for a male-run sports betting app to use Sydney Sweeney as a marketing prop to gain male interest in gambling, and the trend in her recent advertisements reveals she sees no issue with this.
In response to the backlash her ad has received, Sweeney responded by posting Instagram stories of front covers from magazines that male and female athletes have been featured on. These covers were primarily for ESPN’s The Body Issue’s, which have in the past featured Olympic athletes semi or fully nude.
The difference between the ads is large; one is promoting and celebrating the achievements and athleticism of real athletes, and the other is intentionally sexualizing a woman’s body for the sake of selling a product. This difference becomes even greater when acknowledging the fact that Sweeney is not an athlete. She is an actress being used to promote sports and sports betting, and cannot be compared to athletes.
The argument that Sweeney is not liable or making a larger statement is not valid, as she has not released any form of apologetic statement, and instead reaffirms in actions instead of words, if other people can do it, why can’t she?
This ad is communicating that an attractive white blonde woman can stand nude in an advertisement while repeating the word “sports,” and receive massive amounts of attention. The opening line of the ad, “Think you know sports? Prove it,” is daring viewers to keep watching, keep gambling and stay addicted. Not only is this inherently wrong, but it is massively discouraging to every woman that has fought to be treated with dignity in sports.
The inherent nature of this advertisement seems almost satirical. The heavy emphasis placed on Sweeney’s body for the entire length of the ad distracts from the fact that it is promoting gambling. With gambling and porn being increasingly serious addictions, it is harmful to portray them in such a sexual and enticing light.
This theme of making addiction mainstream by gambling companies and celebrities is becoming more and more common. Novig’s ad does just that, while furthering misogyny and allowing for the isolation and mental health issues in men to worsen.
