00:00Think you know sports? Prove it.
00:03American actress Sydney Sweeney has raised the collective ire of the world's elite sportswomen
00:09after appearing barely clothed in a betting ad.
00:12Female Olympians, including Australia's eight-time medallist Ariane Titmuss, accused the actress
00:19of demeaning and sexualising women's sport. Titmuss wrote,
00:23I can't describe how infuriated I feel when I watch this, not only is it a kick in the face
00:29to every woman who has dedicated her life to perfecting her craft, but every woman who enjoys
00:35sport for what it really is, teamwork, friendship, dedication, excellence and unity. How do we live
00:42in a world where monetising a woman's body and sexualising women's sport is still a thing?
00:48The commercial for Novig's sports prediction was viewed more than 22 million times in just the
00:54first two days after its release, and features Sweeney's nude body covered by sports equipment.
01:00Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like. 21-4, muscles, hard work, sweat, blood tears.
01:08British sprinter and four-time European champion Amy Hunt directly called out the actress,
01:14referencing her USA rival Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, who ran a 21.47 seconds in the 200 metres at the
01:23World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest.
01:27She's only the third woman in history ever to run inside. 21.5, it's rounded down by another hundredth.
01:38It uses a women's body to sell sports betting while reducing women's sport to a sexualised punchline.
01:45It's a trope that we need to do away with. And it comes from an industry already aggressively
01:50targeting young men through sport to gamble, to ruin their lives.
01:55British cyclist and Olympic gold medalist Sophie Capewell also criticised the advertisement,
02:00saying, Imagine a world where sexualised representation isn't the most popular way of seeing women in sport.
02:08The advertising campaign also comes on the heels of the release of the Raising the Bar guidelines.
02:14This 23-page guide by the European Broadcasting Union was released in July 2026 and aims to stop the
02:22sexualisation of women athletes in live sports broadcasts by focusing on wider camera panning without
02:29unnecessary slow motion, low or lingering body shot angles. The guideline was universally welcomed by
02:36female athletes in Europe and abroad. The most recent ad campaign is, of course,
02:41not Sweeney's first foray into controversial advertising.
02:45I'm not here to tell you to buy American Eagle jeans.
02:47In July 2025, Sweeney appeared in an American Eagle Outfitters advertisement,
02:53which was panned for its apparent racial undertones.
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