When Sydney Sweeney's advertisement for the sports betting app Novig launched in mid-September 2026, it triggered outrage among women athletes and commentators who saw it as a step backward for female representation in sports. But beneath the surface controversy lies a more instructive story about corporate strategy and incentive structures.
WNBA player Sophie Cunningham offered what many outlets called the "sane take" on the controversy, dismissing the uproar as overblown during her podcast "No Hesitation." Her argument was straightforward: Sweeney was hired to appeal to a specific demographic—sports bettors, overwhelmingly male—and she did exactly that. The ad, Cunningham reasoned, has nothing to do with women's sports and shouldn't be interpreted as a commentary on female athletes' worth or progress.
But the real story is who decided this campaign should exist and what that decision reveals about how corporate America views female bodies and the expanding gambling market.
According to Novig CEO Jacob Fortinsky, the concept originated with Sweeney herself. "It really was Sydney who was driving a lot of the visuals and the messaging," he said during a panel discussion. This detail matters because when an actress proposes her own sexualized image as marketing strategy, corporations gain plausible deniability.
What Fortinsky was less forthcoming about was the underlying business calculation. Sports betting is one of the fastest-growing revenue sectors in American media and entertainment. Legal wagering markets have exploded since the Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on sports betting in 2018, creating a multi-billion-dollar industry hungry for user acquisition. Every major sportsbook—DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, and dozens of smaller operators—is locked in a customer acquisition arms race.
Novig's campaign wasn't an anomaly. It was a deliberate choice to deploy sex appeal as an acquisition tool, betting that the controversy itself would generate more media attention than a conventional ad campaign ever could. The backlash from women's sports advocates and athletes became free publicity, driving engagement metrics that advertising executives dream about.
Draw Hanlen, Sweeney's podcast partner, noted during promotional discussions that approximately 75 percent of sports bettors are male—a figure industry observers suggest may actually understate the male skew. The ad was precisely targeted at the male-dominated betting demographic that generates Novig's revenue.
Cunningham's dismissal of the controversy contains a kernel of truth that obscures a larger pattern. The ad isn't ostensibly about women's athletics. But it exists within an ecosystem where women's sports have been systematically underfunded, under-promoted, and relegated to secondary status for decades. When a major advertising campaign chooses to feature female nudity to sell gambling rather than featuring female athletes to sell women's sports, that choice itself is a data point worth examining.
Novig's corporate press releases emphasize the company's commitment to women's sports. "We're hugely supportive of women's sports. I think it's a huge component of our platform," Fortinsky stated. Yet the company's most prominent national campaign features no female athletes whatsoever—just an actress in a provocative pose.
Public records and corporate filings could provide essential context: What percentage of Novig's marketing budget went to women's sports promotion versus celebrity-focused campaigns? How much did the Sweeney ad cost to produce and distribute compared to potential grassroots sponsorships of women's leagues? These questions reveal actual corporate priorities beneath the press release rhetoric.
The gambling industry's explosion has coincided with increasingly aggressive marketing tactics aimed at normalizing sports betting. Young people are being exposed to betting ads at unprecedented levels. The industry has faced regulatory scrutiny in several states, though enforcement remains fragmented and often ineffective.
Sweeney has built a career partly on her willingness to pose nude or semi-nude for projects she believes in. But the larger question is whether there's any meaningful accountability for how corporations deploy female sexuality as a profit mechanism, particularly in industries like gambling that carry well-documented harms including addiction and financial ruin.
Cunningham may be right that the ad "has nothing to do with" women's sports per se. But it has everything to do with how the broader media and marketing landscape treats women's bodies as a commodity to be leveraged for male-dominated industries.
