By now, you’ve probably seen or heard about the Sydney Sweeney ad for Novig, the sports betting platform. You may have seen or heard some of the anger and exhaustion expressed by women athletes, or heard the witty mockery of it by Irish comedian Kyla Cobbler, who said in an Instagram video: “I get it. The amount of times I’ve gone on to the basketball court and then just found myself balancing on my vulva on the rim of the hoop, staring down the camera. We’ve all been there, lads…”
I am glad that women are mad, even if our anger is being dismissed by sexist pundits. But I want men to be mad too, and I think they have right to be—both on our behalf and on their own.
The Novig advertisement centers a mostly-naked Sydney Sweeney. For those who don’t know her, she’s the blonde actress best known for her role in the tv show “Euphoria,” and for her body. She is also well known for her 2025 American Eagle “good jeans” ad that gave more than a wink and a nod to eugenics.
In the Novig ad that came out this month, Sweeney—as Kyla Cobbler humorously put it—“balances on her vulva”—that is, sits naked with her legs spread over a basketball hoop, her blonde hair the only thing covering her breasts. She presses footballs against her bare breasts, balances a soccer ball over her naked body with her the bottoms of her feet, plays hockey and golf wearing next to nothing, and writhes on a pool table in nothing but white underwear, all while explaining in her affectedly bored-sounding voice that Novig is “just sports”—which you, the viewer, can place monetary bets on.
The ad angered many women because it was ostensibly about sports, but the company did not feature women athletes engaging in sports. Instead, it featured a non-athlete selected specifically for her large breasts, curves, blond hair, the vapid stare from her blue eyes, and likely her role as a stockholder in the company. Women were not mad because, as some pundits suggested, “We’re jealous.” Nope. We acknowledge and respect that her body is “tea.” We just don’t think that’s relevant for an ad about “just sports.” Rather, we are angry because the ad conveyed a tired old paradigm we know well.
Everywhere, even in sports, our bodies matter more for how they look and feel to men than for what they can do (athletically, or in any other way), and more than how our bodies feel to those of us who inhabit these bodies.
This paradigm—and an ad that moves from it—aims to diminish our strength and capacity. It reinforces the sexualization of women and even young girl athletes—something that athletes have been long ringing the alarm about, particularly given how many cases there have been of male coaches sexually abusing young athletes. Further, it imposes beauty standards that discourage muscularity and power, while encouraging weakness and vulnerability. This is all during a time of escalating violence against women and girls, a rise in misogynist ideologies and politics, and a rise in weight-loss drugs and pressure to be thin.
And while this ad is built for the male gaze, designed to benefit men’s desires—especially white men’s desires, given Sydney Sweeney’s links to eugenicist thought—and while this ad was aimed at capturing the attention of men at the expense of women’s agency and power in sports, it doesn’t actually benefit men. In fact, it’s harmful to men.
Why? Because it’s an ad for sports betting. And who goes bankrupt from sports betting? Who loses their families because of sports betting? Who dies by suicide at higher rates, driven by debt and shame? Men do.
In fact, the New York Times published an article on Sept. 19 about how a different sports betting company, DraftKings, “uses AI to target the gamblers likeliest to lose” and advertises directly to them. And as Dr. Amy Marschall, Psy.D., pointed out when she shared the article on BlueSky, “Gambling has the highest suicide rate of any addiction.” It is not hyperbolic to suggest that sports betting companies drive men to addiction and to its many harms, including suicide.
So while sexist marketing like this is harmful to women and girls, it isn’t doing men any favors either. Corporations that want to exploit men—at whatever cost to these men— make them willing participants in their own exploitation, using sexism (and racism) to fool them into feeling like they’re in charge, like they hold the power.
Of course; the logic is seductive: A man watching it is meant to think, “If this ad was made to satisfy my desires, if it was made to speak directly to me and what I want (to have a sexy woman ask me for my ‘takes’ on sports)”—and yes, she uses that word “takes” specifically, and it does a lot of carrying here, “and if it makes women mad, then I’m the one winning here. This was all built for me.” And in being seduced by this thinking and this pretense of power, he remains unaware of how he is being exploited and harmed.
This is very similar, of course, to how billionaires sell white supremacy to low-income white people of all genders, so they can feel like they have at least some power while the billionaire class continues to exploit them. Sexism, like racism, results in the worst harm to its targets at every level—bodily, interpersonally, intrapersonally, economically, systemically—but it also gives a false promise to those who are supposed to benefit from it, while blinding them to their own exploitation. Sexism more broadly, and sexist marketing like this Novig ad, makes men into compliant weapons of their own destruction.
This is why, yet again, I ask men to consider that y’all’s liberation is bound up in ours. The same things that will free us women and gender minorities of our chains will free you of yours as well.
This MFP Voices opinion essay reflects the personal opinion of its author(s). The column does not necessarily represent the views of the Mississippi Free Press, its staff or board members. To submit an opinion for the MFP Voices section, send up to 1,200 words and sources fact-checking the included information to voices@mississippifreepress.org. We welcome a wide variety of viewpoints.
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