Actress Sydney Sweeney faced backlash this past week following her almost completely naked appearance in an advertisement for sports prediction market app Novig, which was released Wednesday, Sept. 9.
Prediction markets like Novig are an alternative form of sports betting, in which individuals place bets against one another based on outcomes of future events. The payout of these bets is determined by the supply and demand of the prediction, as outcomes with a higher probability or predicted chance of winning provide a lower payout. Looking to compete with big name prediction market apps like Kalshi and Polymarket, Novig’s controversial advertising campaign skyrocketed its viewership. Sweeney’s campaign, composed of three advertisement videos in total, has amassed 6.7 million views on YouTube. Novig currently sits at #10 in Apple’s top downloaded sports apps in the App Store.
In the commercial, Sweeney partially covers her nude body and poses with sports equipment, while monotonously repeating the word “sports” into the camera. The commercial itself is quite vague, and leaves the viewer wondering if the commercial is for a sports prediction market or an underwear brand. Sweeney tells audiences, “[there is] no betting on wars, or deaths, and no politics.” This comment follows their competitor Kalshi’s current entanglement in multiple political prediction scandals.
In response to Sweeney’s advertisement, female athletes took to social media to speak out against the advertisement’s misogynistic perpetuation of women’s relationship to sports. Female athletes, representing a variety of sports, have posted empowering videos highlighting their own competition in sports. Professional Canadian cliff diver and social media influencer Molly Carlson captioned a recent video, “I spent YEARS struggling with the way my body looked in sport…I didn’t think I looked like the athlete I was ‘supposed’ to be.” British sprinter Amy Hunt also called out Sweeney after her 200 meter race in the Ultimate Athletics Championship in Budapest, telling BBC, “This is what women in sport look like–21.4, muscles, hard work, sweat, blood, tears.” Many athletes have shared that this advertisement feels like a step backwards for women’s sports, as women continue to fight to not be sexualized in their sports.
On her Instagram story this past week, Sweeney defended her nude advertisement, posting various magazine campaigns in which female athletes have appeared nude. Online, individuals have drawn a distinction between Sweeney’s nude campaign and her example of Serena Williams’ magazine cover on ESPN’s 2009 “The Body Issue.” While ESPN’s “The Body Issue” was used to highlight what a professional female athlete’s body looks like, Sweeney’s appeals to the male gaze in an attempt to promote Novig.
Looking beyond this controversial marketing decision, Novig’s advertisement underscores broader concerns with prediction markets, which provide a legal variation of sports betting across the country. The World Health Organization estimates that about 5.5 percent of women and 11.9 percent of men are affected by gambling worldwide. Sports gambling is destructive to the livelihoods of the American public, as well as the integrity of the sports industry. Female athletes, especially, are targets of severely vile comments from individuals who lose their bets.
Novig’s advertisement can be interpreted as a creative marketing strategy, hoping to profit off of the idea that all press is good press. Sweeney’s visuals, however, reestablish the idea that women’s bodies’ relationship to sports is purely sexual. Collective pushback from female athletes online can produce a much stronger counter assertion to Novig’s message: that women belong in sports.