The ad is just barely over a minute long, and yet within a month it’s become the center of a media frenzy. Previously only known as just a sports-betting company, Novig has amassed an audience for themselves just through a singular ad campaign, at the center of which is actress Sydney Sweeney. Although they only have 14.7k subscribers on Youtube, “Novig is Just Sports” or as it’s now generally known,“The Sydney Sweeney Ad” has brought in 6.5 million views, with 1,628 comments. With that also came dozens of Tiktoks, Instagram reels, videos, thinkpieces, and more that have cropped up in the month since it’s been released. It’s no secret that it’s a highly controversial topic right now; Some say that it’s just an ad and people are getting worked up over nothing, while others argue that there is a deeper message behind it. Some don’t even know what to think at all. I believe that what matters most is the context behind it – obviously it’s an ad, meant to send a message to the viewer. What that message is though is important and can help understand why the response to this ad has been so negative.
Before anything, let’s talk about the ad itself. The main focal point is the actress Sydney Sweeney’s body, which at times is barely covered or completely nude.She poses with various athletic gear- helmets, bats, footballs, hockey sticks, while speaking to the viewer directly about the sports betting company. She promises that Novig provides a non-controversial space, “No betting on wars, deaths, or politics,” Sweeney says, smiling while she lies half naked on a pool table. “Who better to tell you that Novig is Just Sports than Sydney Sweeney wearing just sports?”, the caption reads, and then even lower, “Available nationwide, Novig gives fans a modern way to participate in the games they love through market-driven pricing designed around fairness and transparency.”
There is obviously nothing fair or transparent about this ad. Sweeney is a woman wearing a sport, not a woman playing a sport. Executives at Novig including CEO Jacob Fortinsky actively chose this hypersexualized version, monetizing a woman’s body to pander towards an audience of men to purchase their product. With her figure treated as the center of attention, the ad only plays into the restrictive roles women are often expected to fit in when body-focused media is involved. That is exactly why, at least in my opinion, that this ad is so contested over. After all, women had to fight to be able to even play sports with their biggest enemy being their own bodies. In the United States women had to wait until Title IX in 1972 which was meant to prevent sex-based discrimination in education, but especially sports. In the past, women’s bodies were often used as a weapon to why they couldn’t play alongside their male counterparts, with excuses like modesty and the myth of female fragility. It took women like Billie Jean King, Dancia Patrick, Wilma Rudolph and so many more to help break those stereotypes, but that doesn’t mean it solved everything. Even now, women’s bodies are still used against them; Even though obviously sports are body and fitness focused, women often find themselves having their bodies policed and obsessed over. Trans women’s bodies play a key role in them being barred from joining women’s leagues. They’re seen as ‘too masculine’ and ‘unfair’ towards the female players, which only helps reinforce the stereotype that women are inherently weaker compared to the male sex. When they do play, oftentimes women are made to compete in much more revealing outfits than their male counterparts, such as the Norwegian women’s beach handball team who were made to wear bikini bottoms while they competed. In protest, they wore shorts to one match and were subsequently fined for “improper clothing”.
It all comes down to the female body, whether it’s oversexualization or gender discrimination, and the fight to combat it. Novig’s ad is tasteless and insensitive to this subject, and only serves to fuel these prejudices. With Sweeney’s figure treated as the center of attention, the ad only plays into the restrictive roles women are often expected to fit in when body-focused media is involved. Obviously, while Sweeney played a major role in this, we must also remember that a board of people chose to release this ad to the public. They chose to play this ad across millions of screens, and though the outcome is what they wanted, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stop talking about it. Although ‘all press is good press’, that doesn’t exempt Novig from well-deserved backlash. The Sydeney Sweeney ad does not diminish the accomplishments of female athletes. But the subtle messaging, and the not-so-subtle visuals are representative of how the sports industry and media views women’s bodies as a whole.