There’s been a huge reaction over the past few days to Sydney Sweeney’s new campaign for sports prediction company Novig.

If you haven’t seen it, the advert features Sweeney wearing little or nothing, strategically covered by pieces of sports equipment, while promoting Novig’s platform. The response from female athletes has been fierce. Olympic champions and elite sportswomen including Ariarne Titmus, Amy Hunt and Sophie Capewell have criticised it, and many athletes have posted videos of themselves competing under the message: “This is what women in sport look like.”

Let me start with something important. I understand their frustration.

Women’s sport has fought incredibly hard to be taken seriously. Female athletes should be recognised first for their talent, dedication, sacrifice, strength and achievements, not for how attractive they happen to be.

I’m a big supporter of women’s sport. I barely watch men’s football any more; I watch the women’s game with my daughter, and the growth in standard, visibility and professionalism has been fantastic to see. So I get why athletes are protective of that progress.

But I think several different arguments have been mixed together here. And when I actually look at this advert, I’m not convinced it says what some of its critics think it says.

Sydney Sweeney Isn’t Pretending to Represent Female Athletes

This is the biggest distinction for me. Sydney Sweeney isn’t a professional athlete. She’s an actor and a celebrity.

Novig didn’t take an Olympic swimmer or sprinter and say, “Instead of celebrating your ability, we’re going to sell your body.” They hired an actor whose public image is part of her commercial value. And the campaign appears deliberately aimed at a predominantly male sports and betting audience.

That doesn’t make it tasteful, and it doesn’t mean people shouldn’t criticise it. But it does change the context. The sports equipment is a visual device that links the advert to the product. I don’t watch it and think, “This is how Novig thinks female athletes should be represented.” I see a deliberately provocative celebrity advert designed to get people talking about a sports prediction business.

On that measure, it worked. The campaign reportedly passed 22 million views in two days, and analysis reported by Business Insider found Novig’s social media mentions rose roughly ninefold. Ironically, the backlash became part of the marketing.

Sex Sells. We Can Dislike That Without Pretending It Doesn’t Exist

This is where I’ll probably upset some people. Attraction has been used in advertising for decades because people respond to attractive people. Men and women. It isn’t only done to women.

David Beckham is the obvious example. His commercial value was never based purely on football; fashion, underwear, fragrance and grooming endorsements all monetised his appearance alongside his sporting fame. Male actors and athletes have appeared shirtless or virtually naked in adverts for years. Female celebrities have done the same, and so have female athletes.

One detail doing the rounds needs correcting. Serena Williams wasn’t naked on the cover of Sports Illustrated. She appeared nude on one of six covers of ESPN The Magazine’s first Body Issue in 2009, reportedly the best-selling of the six. That issue deliberately celebrated elite athletic bodies, male and female.

None of that invalidates the athletes’ criticism. But it shows that the relationship between sport, bodies, attractiveness and commercial imagery is far more complicated than “an attractive woman with sports equipment is an attack on women’s sport.”

Choice Versus Objectification

Female athletes should be free to compete in whatever kit suits their sport, and to post photos of themselves in bikinis, training gear or anything else. The same goes for men. Choosing to show your body doesn’t mean giving up the right to object when someone reduces your entire worth to that body. Both things can be true.

Equally, attractiveness doesn’t disappear because someone is an athlete. If an athlete posts content that celebrates their physique, people will notice their physique. The real distinction is between noticing someone’s attractiveness and deciding that’s all they’re worth.

A woman can be an extraordinary athlete and attractive. So can a man. Celebrating one doesn’t cancel out the other. The problem comes when appearance consistently overshadows achievement, or when female athletes find their commercial opportunities depend on looking a certain way. That’s a legitimate issue worth discussing.

Athletes Operate in a Commercial Marketplace

Professional sport isn’t separate from the entertainment industry. Athletes have sponsors, personal brands, social audiences, ambassador deals and fashion campaigns. Commercial value isn’t decided by performance alone. Personality, following, story and marketability all matter, and, uncomfortable as it is, so can appearance.

Again, that isn’t unique to women. Beckham shows how sporting success can create the platform while image turns someone into a global lifestyle brand. Would he have earned as much from fashion and grooming deals if brands hadn’t found him marketable? Probably not. That doesn’t diminish what he achieved on the pitch. It’s simply how celebrity marketing works.

The Criticism That Deserves More Attention

For me, there’s a more interesting angle than the gender debate: it’s a gambling advert.

Using sex appeal to grab attention and then pointing that attention at a gambling or prediction product raises a separate ethical question. Former Olympic skier and Australian MP Zali Steggall described the campaign as using sexualisation to attract young men to gambling. That’s a legitimate discussion about how gambling brands use celebrity, influencers and sponsorship. But it’s a gambling advertising debate, not proof that the advert is trying to define what a female athlete should look like.

What Marketers Can Learn From It

From a business perspective, this is fascinating. The campaign was attacked for being provocative, but provocation was clearly the strategy. Sweeney reportedly holds an equity stake in Novig, and the CEO says she pitched the partnership herself.

Then came the backlash. Athletes made response videos, the media covered them, more athletes joined in and social media argued about it. People who’d never heard of Novig suddenly knew its name. The critics unintentionally became part of the distribution.

That’s not a criticism of the athletes. If you believe something damages women’s sport, you have every right to say so. But there’s a brutal irony: the campaign against the campaign may have made it far more successful.

There’s a caveat, though. Business Insider’s analysis found only around 4% of posts about the controversy actually mentioned Novig. Everyone remembering Sydney Sweeney with a basketball isn’t the same as remembering the brand. Views aren’t revenue. Controversy isn’t conversion. And awareness isn’t the same as positive brand equity. That’s a lesson every gym marketing team should remember when chasing reach for its own sake.

So Are the Athletes Wrong?

No. Their underlying argument deserves respect. Women have spent generations fighting to be recognised for achievement rather than appearance, and girls should grow up seeing female athletes celebrated for being powerful, skilful and determined.

When Amy Hunt runs 22.10 seconds for 200 metres, that should be the story. When Ariarne Titmus wins four Olympic golds, her legacy shouldn’t depend on whether someone finds her attractive.

Where I disagree is with turning this particular advert into a statement about women in sport. I don’t think it is one. It’s an actor in a deliberately provocative campaign for a sports prediction company. The props are sports equipment because the product is about sport.

Maybe We’re Asking the Wrong Question

Rather than “Does this advert show what women in sport look like?”, I’d ask: “Was it ever supposed to?”

I don’t think anyone watching Sydney Sweeney sitting on a basketball hoop believes they’re watching elite women’s basketball. It’s advertising. Provocative, perhaps unnecessary, perhaps outdated, and people are entitled to dislike it. But there’s a risk of attaching wider meaning to every campaign simply because we don’t like the creative.

Where I Land

I want my daughter to see female footballers celebrated for their ability. I want female athletes to get the recognition, investment, coverage and sponsorship they deserve. I don’t want women’s sport reduced to looks, and I don’t believe women should have to sexualise themselves to succeed commercially.

But supporting women’s sport doesn’t require us to pretend sex appeal doesn’t exist, or that celebrities and athletes of both sexes haven’t used their image when they’ve chosen to.

Celebrate female athletes as athletes. Judge them on their achievements. Give women’s sport the coverage it deserves, and challenge businesses when athletes are valued for appearance over ability. But recognise that this was an actor who chose to take part in a provocative campaign, not an athlete being told this is how she must look to succeed.

The athletes are fighting an important battle. I’m just not convinced this advert is the enemy. And somewhere in Novig’s marketing department, I suspect they’re watching millions of people argue about a brand most of us hadn’t heard of a week ago and thinking: please, keep talking.

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Ryan Charlesworth, Founder, Black Raccoon Consulting