Last month, Sydney Sweeney broke the internet. Again.
On September 9, Novig, a sports betting platform, released a minute-long ad starring Sydney Sweeney. The ad opens with Sweeney slowly walking down a dark hallway away from the camera. She turns to speak to the camera and as she does, the frame pans out showing her, topless, holding two footballs over her breasts. The ad leaves little to the imagination as the next shot pans upward to show her, completely nude, sitting on a basketball hoop with only her blonde hair to hide behind.
Novig’s intention, however, is not to hide the beautiful actress, but to place her body front and center. The ad cycles through shots of Sweeney first on a tennis court, then in a locker room, and finally lying on a pool table. In every clip, Sweeney is featured using sports equipment to cover just enough of her body to keep her from being completely exposed.
Throughout the ad Sweeney says the word “sports” nine times, attempting to convince her audience that Novig is a platform concerned with only one thing: sports. But no one is fooled.
If viewers somehow didn’t get the hint, in a close up shot, Sweeney says, “so they wanted to show,” and then as the frame expands, to show her naked figure on top of a basketball hoop, she says, “just sports.”
This ad is doing far more than convincing people to assess the “spread,” bet the “over/under,” or “lay the wood” (yes, these are real gambling terms). Rather, the ad not so implicitly equates throwing money on a bet to throwing money at an industry of sexualized women’s bodies. By telling men to place sports bets through Novig and simultaneously holding their attention with explicit shots of Sweeney’s body, the marketing encourages the association of gambling with nude women. Now, the next time they go to place a bet, men’s brains are telling them that they could get the same rush and boost of serotonin from porn or, taken to the extreme, from buying sex.
The immediate reaction has been twofold. Female athletes all over the world are furious. Artistic gymnast, Gracie Kramer, posted a TikTok compiling clips of her playing various sports with the caption “idk what Sydney Sweeney was doing, but this is what a woman in sports looks like.” Other athletes were quick to join in. For example, in a post-race interview British sprinter, Amy Hunt weighed in on the ad. “Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sports look like. 21.4., muscles, hard work, blood, sweat, and tears,” said Hunt, referring to sprinter Melissa Jefferson-Wooden’s winning time.
And yet, others applaud Sweeney and Novig for their marketing genius. The ad was indeed attention-grabbing, proving once again that sex sells. It blew up immediately, and Novig has soared upward in the App Store’s rankings.
It seems that Sweeney was on board with the marketing, as she owns equity in Novig and said the following in a press release: “The campaign was about embracing a fun idea… the concept is simple: cut through the noise and put the focus entirely on sports. The campaign brings that idea to life with confidence, humor and a playful edge.” Novig CEO has also revealed that Sweeney was behind a lot of the “visuals” and “messaging.” Sweeney was not exploited nor taken advantage of. Rather, she leveraged her appeal to the male gaze and got her payout. One Facebook comment replying to a critique on the ad stated, “And she is winning. The gambling company is winning. The ad company is winning. – because everyone is talking about the ad. Winning.”
It’s true – the ad is, from a marketing standpoint, a success. But at what cost? And at whose expense?
Novig is advertising sports gambling, now widely recognized as a public health issue in the United States, through a woman wearing practically no clothing. Yet, the majority of the public discussion is centered around how successful the ad was as a marketing campaign or how offensive it was to women in sports. When did society become so desensitized to the consequences of viewing pornography and the repercussions of gambling that these are the main conversations surrounding such a scandalous ad?
The limited scope of this conversation fails to capture the layers of societal consequences promoted by such an explicit ad. At the very least, the ad’s damage is threefold: it shamelessly associates pornographic content with gambling without concern for the repercussions; it normalizes pornographic content and the ramifications that come with it; and it encourages corruptive habits in a young audience.
Studies have shown that gambling and pornography are two of the more prominent, non-substance-related addictions in modern society. Novig’s ad proudly promotes both. It not so subtly hints that these two things that were for so long taboo in society are now not only allowed but are worthy of platforming. Concerningly, the ad is being broadcast to everyone, not just adults, with little care for the consequences. The gambling demographic is getting younger, which means audiences are becoming more responsive to the quick-moving, attention-grabbing ads. In a society that is inextricably bound in capitalist goals, companies and marketing firms move forward with harmful ads to maximize profits, altogether ignoring social responsibility.
In a society obsessed with instant gratification, it’s no wonder gambling is so popular. In the last 25 years, barriers to purchase have largely disappeared. It has become standard that almost anything can be bought with just a click of a button and arrive in less than twenty-four hours. A consumer sees an image on a screen and knows it can be theirs almost instantaneously, rarely pausing to consider whether such a purchase is necessary or worth the price. This world of promise creates the belief that the would-be consumer is owed the opportunity to instantly purchase whatever is advertised. This raises the question: when an ad such as Novig’s runs, will viewers really assume they are owed “just sports”?
By making the explicit shots of Sweeney the focus of this advertisement, Novig is actively contributing to the consumption and commodification of women’s bodies. The majority response has failed to notice the danger of such a promotion. Widespread pornography consumption and the desensitization that comes along with it inevitably harm men and boys: pornography use can lead to relationship dissatisfaction, erectile dysfunction, and hinder the brain’s ability to process pleasure. However, the damage imposed by pornography extends much further. Studies have shown that the objectification of women through the violent nature of pornography has been found to play a significant role in facilitating young men’s violence against women. The nature of most pornography suggests to consumers that violence and degradation are what sex is supposed to be.
To make matters worse, those who are most vulnerable to these effects are those whose brains are still developing: children. When Daniel Roberts, the editor in chief of Front Office Sports, pointed out that Novig’s ad has an adult content warning on X, Novig’s CEO, Jacob Fortinsky, responded “Trading is for adults.”
And yet, the Novig ad has not been age restricted. Rather, it has blown up on TikTok and YouTube and has been plastered on the side of a building in Times Square. Young viewers don’t have to go looking for it, it comes to them. The ad idealizes gambling and, with each of Sweeney’s smiles, plants the idea that women’s place in media—and society—is to serve the male gaze. Children are being sold the lie that women’s worth is tied to their bodies, and men can gain access to women’s bodies if enough money is on the table. Young men are being spoon-fed the idea that the commercialization of women’s bodies, like gambling, is a business—an industry like any other—in which all parties stand to gain.
For Sydney Sweeney, this might be true; but Sweeney and Novig failed to disclaim that Sweeney, the marketing genius leveraging her appeal to men for her own financial gain, is the exception, not the rule. Most women who sell their bodies do so for survival or because of exploitation. Poverty, abusive relationships, and substance abuse are just some of the factors that make a woman’s “choice” to engage in such activities not really a choice at all. Crude, outdated ads such as this one perpetuate a system that thinks first about instant gratification and only later wonders about the cost.
All views expressed therein are personal to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law or of Villanova University.