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Sydney Sweeney’s “Just Sports” Campaign Starts a Marketing Conversation Beyond Sports

Novig, a sports prediction market, just launched its first national “Just Sports” campaign, starring Sydney Sweeney. The Euphoria star is not only the face of the campaign, but also a strategic partner and equity holder. One ad shows Sweeney posing with sports equipment just barely covering her nude body. Some female athletes have called it a step backward for how women’s sports are marketed.Novig’s marketing tactic isn’t anything new. Brands have long used shock value and celebrity endorsements to grab attention and generate buzz. But the visual language the company chose is doing more than catching the eye of sports fans who happen to like Sydney Sweeney. It’s become part of an ongoing conversation about how women’s sports are depicted in the media.In a press release announcing the campaign, Novig described it as a way to present its “Just Sports” message with “confidence, humor and a playful edge.” As Sweeney’s ad circulated widely online, backlash was swift. The overall consensus is that the ad has little to nothing to do with sports trading, and instead primarily highlights Sweeney’s body. Female athletes are among the loudest critics.Four-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer Ariarne Titmus called out Novig’s marketing for sexualizing women’s sports. “I can’t describe how infuriated I feel when I watch this,” she wrote on Instagram, per The Guardian. She added that the ad undermines every woman who has built her career on skill rather than image, and questioned why monetizing women’s bodies still passes as acceptable marketing.Former college gymnast Gracie Kramer also took to Instagram to criticize the ad. She posted a highlight reel of her own athletic career, captioning it with a line aimed squarely at the Novig campaign: “idk what Sydney Sweeney was doing, but this is what a woman in sports looks like.”This is not Sweeney’s first time facing controversy for a marketing campaign. Selling soap made from her bath water in a partnership with Dr. Squatch garnered criticism for what some deemed vulgar exploitation. Her series of short video ads for American Eagle similarly used her sexuality as a marketing ploy. In one clip, Sweeney said, “My body’s composition is determined by my genes.” The camera then panned down to her chest, and she said, “Hey, eyes up here.” For marketers, the Novig campaign offers a case study in a tactic that’s becoming increasingly common: using controversy as a way to drive engagement. Novig set out to build a reputation as a platform for serious sports fans, but the campaign has generated conversation well beyond the world of sports trading. Sweeney’s controversial American Eagle campaign and Novig’s latest campaign suggest a broader pattern in celebrity marketing: sex appeal can be an effective way to capture attention, while also creating reputational risk when the underlying message is perceived as regressive.The bigger risk for brands isn’t the backlash itself, but what the backlash reveals about audience trust. A campaign can rack up engagement and still erode the thing marketers actually need long-term: the sense that a brand understands and respects the people it’s trying to reach. As more companies lean on star power to break through a crowded feed, the Sweeney campaigns are becoming a reference point for what happens when a “bold” creative choice reads as out of touch instead.Grace Turney is a St. Louis-based writer, artist, and former librarian. See more of her work at graceturney17.wixsite.com/mysite.(Photot by ElenaMist/iStock)