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By Hugh Cameron
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Sydney Sweeney’s latest ad controversy promises to pay out big for the actress and her partnering business Novig, the prediction market, which hopes, with the starlet’s help, to rival the giants Kalshi and Polymarket.
The 29-year-old appears to be carving a niche for marketing stunts which draw the ire—and interest—of the American public. Some 13 months on from the American Eagle "great jeans" furor, her recent turn as a seminude, polysport athlete has once again blurred lines between marketing, exploitation and a calculated piece of culture war provocation.
The ad features Sweeney, pretending to play a number of different sports in a mood-lit studio. Barely clothed, she strategically places sports equipment—and is strategically placed herself—to keep the campaign fit for broadcast.
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"Just sports," the "Euphoria" star says in the minute-long commercial, which was first shown last week.
Beyond cementing her status as Madison Avenue’s go-to queen of controversy, the buzz generated by the Novig campaign could prove lucrative for Sweeney, who has acquired an unspecified equity stake in the company.
Newsweek has contacted Novig for comment and is awaiting a response.
Novig Rides Backlash to Success
Founded in 2021 and now valued at around $500 million—before Sweeney’s involvement—Novig is a sports-focused prediction market which allows its users to bet against others on specific sports outcomes.
Though sports betting itself remains banned in a number of states including California and Texas, Novig launched last month and can now operate legally nationwide as a sports prediction market federally regulated and approved by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
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"The campaign was about embracing a fun idea," Sweeney said, according to a press release from Novig. "The concept is simple: cut through the noise and put the focus entirely on sports."
But the public reaction to the ad has sidelined this supposed "focus," with much of the backlash led by real female athletes bemused by the campaign’s casting and its "just sports" tagline.
"Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like: 21.4. Muscles. Hard work, blood, sweat, tears," the British sprinter Amy Hunt said, after competing in the 200 meter sprint at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship on Sunday.
"I can’t describe how infuriated I feel when I watch this," the retired Australian swimmer Ariarne Titmus, a four-time Olympic gold medalist, posted to Instagram.
"How do we live in a world where monetizing a women’s body and sexualizing women’s sport is still a thing?" she added.
But by "hypersexualizing" women’s sports and cutting right to the heart of culture war conversations, some see this as a deliberate campaign of controversy generation by the company itself.
"They’re doing it almost like an instigating troll sort of thing," Stephen Warren, a professor of communications at Northeastern University, told Northeastern Global News. Warren also noted that the campaign appeared to have disrupted the traditional advertising framework, with the subsequent reaction and debate arguably doing more to fuel interest than the ad itself.
Is Sweeney the Big Winner of Novig Ad Backlash?
Variety reports that Sweeney has lost over 200,000 followers on Instagram since the advert first aired and "triggered a negative reaction among those objecting to its sexualization of women in sports."
But the old Madison Avenue adage that "sex sells" holds true today. And in terms of generating raw attention, Sweeney’s "just sports" commercial now appears a calculated piece of marketing by the up-and-coming betting website.
Novig has climbed to number 11 on the App Store sports app rankings from the #50 spot back in August. And over the past week, the term "Novig" has generated around double the search interest as its rivals Kalshi and Polymarket—despite the latter releasing its own advert starring LeBron James over the Labor Day weekend.
The spike in searches for Sweeney means interest in the actress herself—if Google is any indication—now dwarfs that of any prediction market. Since it first aired, "Sydney Sweeney" has now overtaken "Donald Trump" and "Iran war," with "Sydney Sweeney sports ad" becoming the most popular search term over the past seven days.
A year ago, Sweeney faced significant criticism over her American Eagle campaign, some deeming this an endorsement of eugenicist ideals and others a harmless piece of wordplay. Social media airwaves were for days taken up by those championing each side of the argument, and the company weeks later attributed an "uptick in customer awareness, engagement and comparable sales" to the actress’s campaign.
And with her new "strategic partner and equity holder" role at Novig, Sweeney stands to gain if the prediction market can convert the current controversy into brand recognition and sustained user growth.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: John Fitzpatrick and James Debens
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