As many of you may or may not know, Sydney Sweeney recently partnered with the app, Novig, to promote their sports betting opportunities for the upcoming athletic seasons. When producing the ad, the Novig Marketing team and Sydney Sweeney (who is an equity holder for the company) decided to take a rather brash approach to get viewers and clicks. Throughout the advertisement, Sydney Sweeney presented herself semi nude, only covering herself with sports equipment and lingerie, while seductively looking towards the camera and talking about how Novig only bets on “just sports”. Of course you have to give Novig props for knowing their target audience, as most sports bettors are typically men, but, they did not seem to make an effort to bring in more diverse populations to their brand, considering they completely objectified women. While Novig did get the views they wanted, over 2.1 million, and many more when you consider the multiple platforms it has been reproduced on, Sydney Sweeney’s appearance, demeanor, body language, and tone created a disgusting image of women in sports, media, and life in general that simply isn’t acceptable.Â
Now Sydney Sweeney is no stranger to controversial ads. A little over a year ago, Sydney partnered with a well known and beloved brand for college women alike: American Eagle. American Eagle was promoting a new jean line for their customer and wanted an internet sensation like Sydeny Sweedney to help get their product out. However, the way they and Sydeny Sweeney promoted their product broke the internet. American Eagle consistently referenced the dual meaning phrase “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans (genes)”. However, their attempt at a funny joke led to thousands of people boycotting American Eagle. This ad not only panders to the male gaze when they are trying to advertise women’s jeans, but it also sexualizes women to the point that they are deemed as objects for attention rather than powerful, strong, beautiful individuals. It also garnered plenty of backlash from its double entendre between jeans and genes. Sydney Sweeney can be widely seen as the Western beauty standard of light hair, colorful eyes, paler skin, and proportional facial and body features. So many people thought that the phrase utilized in this advertisement was putting down anybody who didn’t look like her. Due to this previous ad, Sydney Swenney’s impression in the marketing world already has left people with a sour taste in their mouths. So, when she comes out basically half naked in the name of “sports,” people were quick to respond.Â
We decided to conduct a small survey asking people their thoughts on this advertisement. Out of about 50 respondents, 72% indicated that they previously participated in high school sports and 26% said that they play(ed) sports in college. Through our results, 21 different sports were represented at the high school and college levels. Of these, hockey was the most popular, followed closely by lacrosse and soccer. Other sports that had multiple representatives were softball, track and field, tennis, dance, field hockey, cross country, volleyball, cheer, and gymnastics. Hockey, tennis, soccer, and softball were some of the sports that were represented in the ad, which were notably some of our largest categories. That means that around 24 people got to see their sport shown in a very objectifying way.Â
Students, parents, and friends alike had loads to say about this advertisement. Grace Stein, a student-athlete at Merrimack, stated that she couldn’t even make it through the whole ad without being “disgusted and shocked”. The way this ad was portrayed made women feel like their place in sports was no more than to be an object for men to look at. Throughout the years “women have fought so hard for their place in sports”, as stated by Mel Pelletier, a former equestrian, and with advertising like this, it just pushes us back another step. It doesn’t push women back in their ability to play their sport, but it pushes back our image that we have built for ourselves which we have fought hard for. Isabella Burkhartzmeyer, a club hockey player at Merrimack mentioned how this ad was hard to watch because there is already a narrative in place on women in sports and this ad “fuels this stigma even more”. It sometimes feels like the only way people look at women is when they are deemed “sexy”, so to see a woman dressed in minimal clothing to promote sports is extremely hard for many women to watch. Cornelia Nisbet, a former ice hockey player and current rugby player at Boston University sums this idea up perfectly by stating that as this ad gains more traction, whether good or bad, it will begin to “teach an entire generation that sexualizing female athletes”, and other women alike, “isn’t just acceptable, but encouraged”. So many young girls may find themselves feeling uncomfortable participating in sports, and that can be for a plethora of reasons, for the way they are treated, included, or even worse, the way they are looked at. I know I don’t want that for the future generations of powerful female athletes, so why create advertisements that make women look “dumbed down to something oversexualized and insignificant compared to our true talent and worth”, as said by former tennis athlete, Carly Lydon. So as you might be able to tell from our small study, this advertisement garnered plenty of attention, but not necessarily the good kind. Many women are outraged by this advertisement, and these few quotes are only a few of millions of responses that are floating around the internet currently.
Now we understand that not everyone disagrees with this advertisement. Some people just say that “women have been used [in] a sexual way to sell sports for a long time”, so what’s the difference? That is the issue, there isn’t a difference. Women have been sexualized for hundreds of years trying to sell items pandered towards the male gaze. Marketing companies should not have to resort to the sexualization of women’s bodies just to get a couple more views and purchases. It’s not just the sexualization of Sydney Swenney that is the problem, but the moral implications behind it all. We need to advocate for women to stop being unnecessarily sexualized just to catch the eyes of men. I understand that some things or advertisements are meant to be more sensual; for instance, lingerie. However, sports are not something inherently sexual, so why make it sexual to get people to look? Other people also comment on how it is absurd “to put the entire feminist movement on one young woman’s shoulders”, and yes, this is true. No singular person should be to blame for faults in the movement. However, Sydney Sweeney was a major driving factor on the way this advertisement was displayed through her connection to the company. ABC news interviewed Novig CEO Jacob Fortinsky about the creative process of the advertisement. In their interview, he stated that “It was a very exciting process to work with her both on the commercial side as well as on the creative side”, Fortinsky said. “It really was Sydney who was driving a lot of the visuals and the messaging” (Leib). For more information regarding this interview, please read Prediction market CEO says Sydney Sweeney was ‘driving’ visuals in controversial ads, by Mason Leib. That being said, she knew exactly how she wanted to display herself, and the thousands of women who are involved in sports, to the public. No one is trying to place her as the know-all-be-all for the feminist movement. However, people just wanted her to acknowledge how she is portraying athletics and women alike when she steps in front of a camera, especially if she has been in predicaments like this before.Â
Overall, this advertisement seemed incredibly distasteful to people in and out of athletics. While those who didn’t necessarily deem it as tasteless decided on a more neutral take towards the ad instead of being supportive of it. However at the end of the day, as one anonymous responder from our survey stated, “one stupid ad doesn’t define the endless success of true female athletes who set the standard”. There are so many ways we as a society can encourage women to be proud of who they are in athletics instead of ashamed for how they will be viewed. People have already begun to make headway into responding to the advertisement in a way that empowers women. Countless edits on TikTok, with an example we have seen being clips of female athletes with “The Man” by Taylor Swift playing, articles on Her Campus, and so much more have been produced to build up women rather than question their worth. If there is an ad that should be viewed more than the Novig ad, it is an ad from Nike made in 2019, which portrays women in a much better way. Click here to enjoy. So if you are sitting here reading this wondering, “what can little old me do to help?”, you are already doing something by reading this. Simply educating yourself and spreading the word about distasteful topics can be the starting point for movements alike. You don’t have to be the biggest advocate out there for women’s empowerment, but doing little acts like taking a moment to share a post, or message a friend can go a long way. To all the women reading this right now, whether you are involved in sports or not, don’t let a silly advertisement like this one define who you are. Be bold, be quiet, be ambitious, be whatever you choose to be–not what others choose for you. As the most empowering thing you can be is yourself.