Female Athletes Push Back Against Sydney Sweeney Sports Ad

A new advertisement featuring actress Sydney Sweeney has upset many female athletes around the world. The ad is for a sports prediction app called Novig. In it, Sweeney appears with little clothing, using footballs and sports gear to cover parts of her body. Athletes say the ad is disrespectful and makes women in sports look like objects rather than competitors.

Four-time Olympic swimming gold medalist Ariarne Titmus was one of the first athletes to speak out. She posted her feelings on Instagram and did not hold back. "I can't describe how infuriated I feel when I watch this," she wrote. She also asked, "How do we live in a world where monetizing a woman's body and sexualizing women's sport is still a thing?" Her post was shared widely and got a lot of attention online.

British sprinter Amy Hunt also spoke out, but she did it in a very public way. After finishing fourth in the 200-meter race at a major track meet in Budapest, Hungary, she looked straight into a BBC camera. "Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like," she said firmly. Then she added, "Muscles, hard work, sweat, blood, tears." Her words quickly spread across social media and were praised by many fans and fellow athletes.

Former U.S. gymnast Gracie Kramer shared her anger on Instagram too. She said she had spent her whole life competing in a sport where female athletes were "oversexualized" and "reduced to our bodies." She felt that women in sports constantly have to fight to be taken seriously for their skills and achievements. To make her point, Kramer posted photos and videos of female athletes training hard, with the caption: "What a woman in sports looks like."

Rugby player Sofie Fella, who is of Chinese and German background, also joined the conversation. She said female athletes are important role models for girls because they break free from society's ideas about how women should look. She argued that female athletes show strength and ability, not just appearance. "And that's why that Sydney Sweeney ad is so disrespectful to every female athlete in the world," she said in her own Instagram post.

Neither Novig nor a spokesperson for Sweeney responded right away when reporters asked for their comments. However, Sweeney did seem to respond to the criticism by posting something on social media over the weekend. She shared a series of covers from ESPN The Magazine's "Body Issue," a special yearly edition that showed athletes posing with little clothing to celebrate different body types and athletic achievement. It was not clear if she was defending the ad or agreeing with the critics.

Sydney Sweeney is a well-known actress who has been nominated for two Emmy Awards. Last year, she starred in and helped produce a movie called "Christy," which told the true story of American boxer Christy Martin. This is not the first time one of her ad campaigns has caused a stir. Earlier in 2025, an American Eagle ad she appeared in — which played on the similar sounds of the words "jeans" and "genes" — also sparked a big online debate.