Female athletes have reacted with anger and incredulity to a “hypersexualized” advertising campaign featuring a nude or minimally clad Sydney Sweeney posing with sports equipment. The campaign, for U.S. sports-prediction market Novig, is “very damaging” for female athletes and young girls looking to get into sport, Australian surfer Felicity Palmateer told CNN in an interview Monday. In a series of photos and videos released Wednesday, Sweeney can be seen naked or scantily clad, holding American footballs, a tennis racket or a baseball bat. In one shot, she lies naked on top of a basketball. Novig also posted an ad on its Instagram reels, which has racked up 37 million views in four days. Palmateer was one of many female athletes to criticize the campaign. “Just absolute utter disbelief, incredibly disappointing, like, how far you can put women’s sports backwards in the space of a 42-second commercial,” she said to CNN, adding that the campaign “is very damaging, especially for young females getting into sport, for females in sport, for females in general, just hypersexualized content.” “We want to be valued for what we can do, not what we look like,” Palmateer added. Australian four-time Olympic swimmer Ariarne Titmus posted a response to the campaign on her Instagram stories. “I wasn’t going to share this as I didn’t want to give this any more attention. But I can’t keep my mouth shut,” she said, according to CNN affiliate 9News. “I can’t describe how infuriated I feel when I watch this,” Titmus wrote. “Not only is this a kick in the face to every woman who has dedicated her life to perfecting her craft, but every woman who enjoys sports for what it really is — teamwork, friendship, dedication, excellence, unity … the list goes on.” Australian swimmer Lani Pallister was another of the athletes to hit back, posting a compilation video of her training and competing, with an overlay that reads: “Don’t know what Sydney thinks sport looks like, but THIS is what sport looks like.” Fellow Australian, boxer Skye Nicholson, posted a similar video in response to the ad. “Giving the ad campaign exactly what they wanted, but honestly these companies need to do better 🙄 Stop sexualising women in #sport,” reads the caption. Sweeney appeared to respond to the backlash Sunday by posting a series of photos from ESPN The Magazine’s annual “Body Issue.” The yearly edition featured dozens of athletes either naked or semi-nude during an 11-year run that came to an end in 2019. This is not the first time that Sweeney’s involvement in an advertising campaign has caused controversy. In summer 2025, she featured in a campaign for U.S. clothing brand American Eagle, which some claimed promoted eugenics and White supremacism. “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring,” she says in one ad. In another, she claims that “my body’s composition is determined by my genes.” Sweeney didn’t initially address the uproar caused by the campaign, causing people to draw their own conclusions on how she felt about the ad. Then, in November, GQ magazine published an on-camera interview asking Sweeney about the fallout. Sweeney responded by saying she was surprised by the reaction, but she didn’t apologize, instead reiterating her love for jeans and her stance that she’s not there to tell people what to think. When asked if she wanted to set the record straight on her intention, the star replied with the now-viral soundbite: “I think that when I have an issue I want to speak about, people will hear.” CNN has contacted Sweeney’s representatives and Novig for comment.
