By J1 Reporter Liv Duncan

It’s Wednesday morning, and you open your Instagram reels for your daily morning scroll. Two videos in and BOOM- you know it’s going to be a big deal when you see it. Sydney Sweeney covering herself with nothing but a softball bat, trying to get you to bet on sports.

In the past weeks, Sydney Sweeney has been the subject of much controversy on the internet. On Sept 9, a commercial from Novig, a sports prediction and trading platform, pictured Sweeney wearing literally nothing, promoting usage of the app using the phrase “just sports.”

Sweeney’s name has been in the same sentence as the word “controversial” for months. The actress, as the spitting image of stereotypically sultry women, has proved a controversial figure in the face of advertisement already this year, with a similar ad for American Eagle. The Novig ad has been no different, reaching more than 63 million views across platforms.

It’s been sparking heated conversations about women’s sports and the role advertisements play in marketing them. Kirsten Birnthal Booth, the former head coach of the Creighton Bluejays Women’s Volleyball team, although acknowledging that the ad was Sweeney’s own decision on what to do with her body, said, “I’ve always been more on the side of believing we, as women, are incredible athletes and we can be incredibly athletic, but we don’t have to sell our body in the process of doing it…I didn’t love that it seemed like it was putting sports, women and sex kind of in the same bucket.”

Many viewers would agree with her. Following the release of the commercial, women as a whole have started conversations, especially about how controversial advertisements impact how the industry is viewed. Booth continues, “I think anytime we have conversations, it’s a good thing. It’s the player’s decision on how they respond to this, if they’re angry, if they want to become a sex symbol. I mean, those are all decisions, and I think ultimately, we want to, and I think Marian does this so well, develop women that are thinking, not just told how you have to react, but thinking about why am I making this decision? Why does it bother me? Why am I okay with it?” Booth said.

Some focus on the role of advertising in the controversy. Jenny Philbin ‘08, Marian’s assistant speech coach and Media Director for Dentsu, a global advertising agency, said, “Novig knew the ad would be a risk and get people talking. I don’t think they anticipated just how deep the conversations would get…how this portrayal of a woman selling sports would spark such outrage from the women’s sports community.”

“Novig knew the ad would be a risk and get people talking, I don’t think they anticipated just how deep the conversations would get…how this portrayal of a woman selling sports would spark such outrage from the women’s sports community.”- Jenny Philbin ’08 Speech Coach

Since the release of the ad, Novig has seen a 900% increase in brand mentions across social media platforms. Philbin adds, “Advertising is about taking risks and getting people’s attention, and Novig did this successfully. However, they risked upsetting a possible target audience that won’t likely be customers in the future.” One of the reasons so many people find the ad infuriating is making money from the outrage it caused. Others see it as a mistake, and are wondering who got fired. However, Philbin notes how hard it is to make a mistake like this, and that it likely wasn’t one: “When you see an advertisement and think ‘who approved that?’- it’s actually several people: creative directors, advertising agencies, and branding professionals. Because of this, sometimes an ad can get over-engineered so much that they miss obvious messages that could be problematic.”

Regardless of whether or not the ad garnered enough outrage to stir a movement, it grabbed the attention of many Marian students. Maddie Wallace, sophomore, swims both for Marian and for her club team. She was indignant about the ad. “It kind of feeds into the stereotype that’s existed for a really long time that in order to be involved or relevant in sports, women have to be sexualized, or they have to be images for the male gaze,” she said.

” I think that as someone who grew up with role models as athletes, like Katie Ledecky, Gretchen Walsh, and so many other amazing female athletes, it’s disheartening to see all of this attention being focused on what’s essentially a betting campaign rather than a ton of deserving female athletes who aren’t really getting the respect that they deserve,” Wallace said.

Caitlyn Osborn, community engagement and brand manager at Set the Bar, a sports bar in Omaha that focuses on Women’ s Sports, said, “my  initial reaction was the biggest eye roll you’d ever seen in your life. I just don’t think it represents women’s sports and the movement in general and all of the progress that we’ve seen over the past few years.”

“One thing that we say all the time is, you know, if she can see it, she can be it. So we love having young girls at the bar being able to see role models on the screens,” Osborn said.

“I think that perception of strength and teamwork, and all of those things are super important to  the audience that we have that set,” she said.

“I think a lot of people are smart enough to see through [the ad], they know that that’s not representative of women’s sports and everything that women athletes can do… but for folks who are maybe on the fence or new to women’s sports it could definitely be detrimental,” Osborn said.

As the reactions to the ad sparked conversations over time, it came to be realized that they weren’t as much about Sydney Sweeney herself as they were about a greater movement within the women’s sports community, and how advertising caused it. Although Novig CEO Jacob Fortinsky stated that there is nothing for Novig to apologize for regarding the ad, millions disagree and are expecting better in the future.