Brand experts say Sydney Sweeney's provocative nude ad campaign for sports platform Novig won't damage her career, but female Olympic athletes are calling it a setback for how women in sports are represented.
The 29-year-old actress, best known for "Euphoria" and "The Housemaid," posed mostly nude for the newly launched sports prediction market, with footballs and other sports equipment strategically placed across her body. The campaign ran nationally, including on Times Square billboards, and created an immediate wave of criticism from some of the world's most accomplished female athletes.
Four-time Olympic swimming gold medalist Ariarne Titmus, British sprinter Amy Hunt, and former U.S. gymnast Gracie Kramer were among those who publicly condemned the ad. Titmus didn't hold back, and Hunt framed her objection in blunt terms.
Titmus told reporters:
"I can't describe how infuriated I feel when I watch this. How do we live in a world where monetizing a woman's body and sexualizing women's sport is still a thing?"
Hunt added her own pointed response: "Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like. Muscles, hard work, sweat, blood, tears."
Sweeney defended the campaign in a statement to Variety, calling it a lighthearted concept meant to draw attention to sports.
"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 Jacob Fortinsky went further, revealing that Sweeney wasn't just the face of the campaign, she was a driving force behind it. Fortinsky told the New York Post that Sweeney herself shaped much of the creative direction and became an equity partner in the venture, giving her a direct financial stake in the ad's success.
"It really was Sydney who's driving a lot of the visuals and the messaging."
Fortinsky also pushed back on the idea that the ad was meant to represent female athletes at all. "Sydney's an actress. We're a prediction market that is focused on sports, and that was the story she was communicating," he said. The campaign racked up more than 40 million Instagram views, and Fortinsky said additional Sweeney campaigns were already planned.
Sweeney also responded to her critics on Instagram, posting a series of ESPN magazine covers from the outlet's famous Body Issue. The covers featured athletes including Serena Williams, Ronda Rousey, Sue Bird, Megan Rapinoe, and Caroline Wozniacki, all posing nude. She captioned the post "It's gamedayyyy" and tagged the Novig platform. The implication was clear: celebrated athletes had done the same thing she was being attacked for.
Whether that comparison holds up is the central tension of the backlash. The ESPN Body Issue featured athletes displaying their own athletic bodies. Sweeney is an actress selling a sports betting product. The critics see a difference. Sweeney's defenders, and Sweeney herself, do not.
Two branding professionals who spoke to Fox News Digital agreed on one thing: the ad fits Sweeney's existing public image. They disagreed on what that means for the broader conversation about women in sports.
Adrienne Uthe, founder of Kronus Communications, argued that the outrage wouldn't leave a mark on Sweeney's career. She framed the controversy as a matter of personal agency.
"People are entitled to dislike the ad, just like women athletes are entitled to criticize it for their own reasons. But I don't think this is materially damaging to Sydney Sweeney in any way, shape or form."
Sweeney had already launched her own lingerie brand, SYRN, earlier in the year, and her career decisions have frequently put her at the center of public debate. Uthe said the Novig campaign was consistent with choices Sweeney has made throughout her rise.
"In fact, I don't think it's a large departure from who she is and what her brand represents. She's a beautiful woman right now at the peak of her career, and she ultimately can decide which projects she wants to take and which ones she doesn't."
Uthe also offered a sharper observation about the gap between viral outrage and actual business results: "Going viral tells me they captured attention. It doesn't tell me they captured the customer."
She cautioned against reading social media backlash as a reliable measure of public opinion. "This is where social media completely distorts reality, and we've seen this across all platforms in pop culture, politics, sports and beyond," Uthe said. "So the narrative that is the loudest isn't necessarily what is true and what the majority opinion is."
Olivia Bennett, a senior account director at the agency Go Up, took a harder line. She acknowledged the commercial logic behind casting Sweeney but said Novig should have anticipated the fallout from running a national campaign built on provocation.
"But this was a national campaign. When you choose someone with such a heavily sexualized and frequently controversial public image, you know the campaign is going to travel far beyond your existing customer base. The wider reaction was entirely foreseeable."
Bennett pointed to the athletes' criticism as the most damaging element, not for Sweeney, but for Novig. "Once the people who actually work and compete in that world start using your campaign as an example of the problem, you have a much bigger reputational issue than a few negative comments online," she said.
On Sweeney's personal brand, Bennett agreed with Uthe that the campaign was on-brand. But she drew a line between brand consistency and broader responsibility. Female Olympians had already made their objections public and specific before the expert commentary even began.
"For Sydney, I don't think the campaign is off-brand at all. If anything, it reinforces the image she has already built. But that doesn't make it good for women in sport. Personal-brand fit doesn't remove the wider impact of the message you're putting into the world."
Novig got its attention. More than 40 million Instagram views and a surge in search traffic confirmed that much. Fortinsky said additional campaigns with Sweeney were in the works, suggesting the company sees the backlash as a cost worth absorbing.
One unnamed social media user captured the frustration felt by many women who compete in sports or have spent years advocating for female athletes to be taken seriously on their own terms:
"As a former athlete and a woman who has personally experienced sexualized comments, I'm genuinely disgusted and deeply disappointed by this campaign. We've spent years fighting to be seen and respected for our talent, strength, and achievements, not reduced to our bodies."
Sweeney's representatives did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. Neither Novig nor Sweeney's publicist responded to the Associated Press, either.
The controversy sits at a familiar intersection in American culture, where celebrity marketing meets the commodification of provocation, and where corporate incentives collide with the values real people hold about merit and respect. Sweeney made a business decision. Novig made a business decision. The athletes who pushed back made a values decision.
Uthe may be right that the loudest narrative on social media isn't always the majority opinion. But when Olympic gold medalists are the ones objecting, women who earned their platforms through years of discipline, not a casting call, the loudest voice in the room might also be the most credible one.
In a culture that claims to celebrate women's empowerment, it's worth asking who actually gets empowered when the campaign check clears, and who gets reduced to background noise.
