Sydney Sweeney may be showing off her “sports,” but several female athletes are being anything but good sports about the latest viral ad featuring the Euphoria actress.
Sweeney’s ad for sports prediction market site Novig last week, which featured the actress posing almost fully nude while covering herself up with a variety of sports equipment, sparked a wave of backlash on social media over the weekend.
The Anyone But You star shared an ad for the site on Sunday as the NFL kicked off its first slate of weekend games, leading to an outpouring of criticism.
British sprinter Amy Hunt didn’t hold back in an interview after finishing fourth in the 200-metre sprint at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest, Hungary.
“It was incredible to be part of such an incredible race. Sydney Sweeney, this is what women is sport look like,” Hunt said. “Muscles, hard work, sweat, blood, tears. This is a beautiful evening.”
Hunt added that being a woman in sports isn’t as pretty as Sweeney’s ad makes it seem.
“Obviously we’ve seen in the last 24 hours everything about the Sydney Sweeney ad, you know, and when you’re a woman in sport, it’s not pretty. It’s not glamorous. It’s not sexy all the time,” she said.
“There’s some low moments. 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.”
Which Olympians slammed Sydney Sweeney?
Ariarne Titmus, a four-time Olympic gold medallist, said that she was “infuriated” by Sweeney’s ad.
“I can’t describe how infuriated I feel when I watch this,” the retired Australian swimmer wrote.
“Not only is it a kick in the face to every woman who had dedicated her life to perfecting her craft, but every women who enjoys sports for what it really is — teamwork, friendship, dedication, excellent, unity.
“How do we live in a world where monetizing a women’s body and sexualizing women’s sport is still a thing?”
American Olympic diver Kassidy Cook hopped on the trend, sharing her own video on Monday morning with the caption “Women athletes rule… not for what our bodies look like… But for what our bodies can do.”
Australian Olympic water polo player Matilda Kearns shared a video featuring clips of her team training and competing while not mincing words about how she felt about Sweeney’s ad.
“I absolutely fking hate Sydney Sweeney’s new sports ad,” Kearns wrote on the video clip, which has racked up more than 188,000 likes.
“Like what are we doing,” she wrote in the caption. “So much worse than I imagined too. Here’s some real women’s sports content.”
How did Sydney Sweeney respond to criticism?
While Sweeney hasn’t directly responded to the comments from the athletes, she did appear to take a swipe at her critics on the weekend by sharing a gallery of images to her Instagram Story that showed magazine covers of ESPN’s Body Issue featuring athletes like Serena Williams, Ronda Rousey, Sue Bird, Megan Rapinoe, Caroline Wozniacki and Rob Gronkowski.
Her partnership with Novig is, in Sweeney’s own words, “about embracing a fun idea.”
She added in a statement shared with The Hollywood Reporter, “The concept is simple: Cut through the noise and put the focus entirely on sports. The campaign brings that idea to life with confidence, humour and a playful edge.”
Is Sweeney naked in the commercial?
The commercial features Sweeney wearing little to no clothing, covering up with a wide variety of sports equipment.
“Think you know sports? Prove it,” Sweeney says in the ad while holding two footballs over her bare chest.
“Novig is just sports, so they wanted to show just sports,” she continues in the next shot while sitting naked atop a basketball hoop and spinning a ball on her finger, with her long blonde hair covering her breasts.
Sweeney is then shown provocatively posing with equipment from several other sports, including tennis, soccer, baseball and hockey goalie pads.
“No betting on wars, on deaths or on politics,” she adds while lying on a locker room bench and balancing a soccer ball on her feet. “Just you, good takes and sports.”
Novig describes itself as a “peer-to-peer sports prediction and trading app focused exclusively on sports outcomes rather than politics or pop culture.” That’s where it differs from competing prediction market sites like Polymarket and Kalshi. Such sites currently aren’t available in Canada.