Athletes are mad Sydney Sweeney got naked

Maybe this is what she wanted, but everyone is mad at Sydney Sweeney over an ad again. And this time she’s isn’t wearing jeans: Sweeney’s new scantily clad ad for sports betting company Novig has received pushback online from women’s sports stars.

The campaign, which ran on TV and social media last week, shows Sweeney almost completely naked talking about the sports prediction market platform, in which she owns equity and joined as a strategic partner. The only things that PG-13-ified the photos and videos were strategically placed sports equipment like a hockey stick, basketball hoop, and, yes, numerous balls.

Backlash was swift:

• American gymnast Gracie Kramer posted an Instagram highlight reel of herself competing overlaid with the words, “Idk what Sydney Sweeney was doing, but this is what a woman in sports looks like.” It garnered over a million likes.
• Other athletes and Olympians, like Australian surfer Felicity Palmateer and swimmer Ariarne Titmus, also aired their frustration that women in sports were still being hyper-sexualized like an early 2010s ad from Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s.

Sweeney has not officially responded…but she did share Instagram stories of past covers of ESPN The Magazine’s now-discontinued “Body Issue” featuring stripped-down athletes.

No stranger to a hated ad: Last summer, an ad featuring Sweeney for American Eagle denim was criticized as having eugenic undertones.—MM