Photo Courtesy of Hannah Walls
By Tiffany Bobadilla
A new sports betting ad by Novig featuring Sydney Sweeney infuriated many female athletes who in response used their social media platforms to contradict Sweeney’s words.
TAMPA, Fla. — “Think you know sports,” are the viral four words that have spiraled in some female athletes’ heads ever since the sports advertisement was posted. Novig, a prediction market on sporting outcomes, featured Sydney Sweeney in clips posing with various sports equipment including footballs, soccer balls and tennis rackets. What seemed like a playful campaign strategy to Novig, turned into a highly controversial topic for many female athletes.
Sydney Sweeny, actress featured in the show “Euphoria” and movie “Anyone But You” which won multiple People’s Choice Awards, has slowly become one of Hollywood’s most famous young actresses.
This wasn’t the first controversial ad she has taken part in. Her Sydney Sweeney has great jeans campaign received backlash for the same reason: over sexualizing women. The American Eagle campaign was promoting the new Sydney Sweeney jean line where she used playful words to joke about her physical traits and blue eyes. Everyone immediately gave her backlash since it seemed as if she was invoking white-centric ideals and beauty standards.
Sweeney has become famous mostly because she knows how to get everyone’s attention. Female athletes have been similarly doing the same thing except their version includes running personal bests, scoring goals, and making entire stadiums lose their minds.
This advertisement unfolded the big battle against misrepresentation and sexualization towards females in sports. Presenting women in sports through sexualized imagery rather than focusing on their hard work and athletic achievement.
Take a look at the uniforms female athletes who do track and field and gymnastics have to wear significantly more revealing and tighter uniforms. Male athletes competing in track and field have uniforms that reach above the knee, collegiate female athletes are seen competing in briefs barely covering their genitalia area, and these are the uniforms handed out by the NCAA and Olympic officials.
Using a highly disliked Hollywood actress rather than an actual athlete, while emphasizing sexuality, reinforces the over sexualized image of female athletes that they have spent years trying to move beyond.
“My first reaction to this ad was just, why not involve an actual athlete to talk about sports?,” says Molly McDowell, a junior on the University of Tampa’s women’s Ice Hockey team. “Why was she naked in all those clips?”
High-profile female athletes, such as Amy Hunt, a British Olympic sprinter, had a lot of say about this ad in a post-race interview shortly after running her second fastest 200-meter race at World Ultimate Champs in Budapest.
“Sydney Sweeney this is what women in sport look like,” said Hunt.
Ariarne Titmus, Australian Olympic gold medalist, voiced her opinion on the ad through her posting stories on her personal Instagram account.
“How do we live in a world where monetising a woman’s body and sexualising women’s sport is still a thing?,” said Ariarne Titmus.
Young girls get to see these female athletes competing at elite levels. They watch them perform with confidence, athleticism and leadership fantasizing that one day they will grow up to be like them.
Athletes have worked so hard to keep up these good images to make sure young girls can believe they have enough will power to be on national television as they play their own matches as well.
What does Sydney Sweeney have to do with women in sports? Realistically, not much. Culturally, so much more. We live in a society where visibility and representation beats actual talent, so what happens when yet another actress decides to take part in another ad like this? It gathers attention and fails to take into account the shift it will cause in the perception of female athletics.