Novig. Sydney Sweeney.
If you haven’t seen the ad by now, let me fill you in. Over the weekend, actress and model Sydney Sweeney partnered with the brand Novig. The promotion of the company centered around the major tagline of “Just sports” or “Think you know sports?” The ad opens with a visual of Sweeney, naked on the top half, holding two footballs in front of her chest. As the ad progresses, Sweeney is seen in multiple shots with no clothes on, repeating various facts about the company, followed by the idea that Novig is about “just sports.”
The 60-second ad is not only posted on Novig‘s official website, but also on TikTok, YouTube, shown in Times Square, and on various other streaming services. So, what is actually being promoted? Nobody seems to know.
Immediately after the release of the Novig x Sweeney promotion, criticism was everywhere. Not only does the ad feature various clips of Sydney almost fully naked, but it is a one-minute-long ad sexualizing the sports industry, especially for women.
In an already male-dominated field, women are in a constant battle to simply be viewed as athletes, instead of being picked apart and over sexualized. From the uniforms they are provided, to the way they are photographed and videotaped, to the stigma around the sports they play, women are fighting daily for the basic respect their male counterparts are being granted.
This not only harms female athletes but also women working in the sports industry, from sports broadcasters to referees, coaches, trainers, and all other roles in athletics, who are subjected to constant sexual harassment while trying to simply do the job they chose.
The choice to produce an ad of this nature reestablished the harmful negative connotation that is associated with women in sports. The decision to display Sydney, wearing nothing more than underwear in some clips, and some with her wearing nothing at all, not only was unnecessary, but glorified all of the hyper sexualization of these women.
Not only does Sweeney have no correlation to the sports industry, but she has a reputation in both her acting and other professional careers for taking on roles and positions that portray her in an objectifying light. As disheartening as it is, she is not best known for her acting or her achievements, but because of the brand she has created for herself, she is best known for her body.
The choice to use someone with this portrayal in a sports-related ad, instead of the many eligible other female athletes, doesn’t make any sense. If the brand, Novig, was truly trying to promote their idea of a sports-related company, they would have used a well-known face in the sports industry. Taking a different route to promote the idea of “just sports.” If the message they wanted to get across was that the brand has no other controversial ties and is a platform for only sports, then why not just use a real female athlete? Instead, they chose Sweeney.
This choice sparked outrage and tons of negative feedback for a variety of reasons. For starters, the mere nature of the ad and the way it is promoted. Parents have seen the ad come across their children’s filtered YouTube accounts and across their TVs.
There is also currently a huge display of the cover photo of Sweeney in Times Square for children to see, which is overly concerning. In a society that has become increasingly more dangerous for both women and children, there is no reason something of this nature needs to be advertised the way it is. It is expected for brands like Sports Illustrated, Calvin Klein, or Victoria’s Secret to produce suggestive material in tune with their products, but for a sports company, I’m struggling to see the point.
Although many people, especially other women, have their differing opinions on the subject, I just felt so frustrated, disgusted, and shocked that in this day and age, after so much progress has been made, one 60-second ad can cause so much damage.
When a brand claims to stand for “just sports” but chooses nudity over athleticism, it tells women exactly where they stand: still on the outside, still objectified, still fighting to be taken seriously.
Progress isn’t guaranteed. It’s something women in sports fight to see every single day. It shouldn’t be undone by a marketing team that decided attention was a better option than respect for women.