As she’s wont to do, Sydney Sweeney amassed a slew of attention in the last week, this time for her partnership with the sports trading and prediction app Novig. Well, less for the partnership itself and more for the mostly nude ad campaign that she’s heading up. After the first spot had her wearing nothing but footballs, the actress’ fans were overly approving, but that wasn’t the case for the rest of the internet, and the (literally) cheeky Novig ad quickly earned criticisms from sports fans and female athletes.
Part of the backlash has centered on the belief that Novig’s campaign trivializes women in sports, and that it sets back any progress made to change public perception on that topic. The majority of complaints out there are focused on the general lack of costuming, and the idea that Sweeney too often relies on using her body as a selling point in her marketing promotions (and even her wildfire prevention messages). Which doesn’t address the fact that it was as much a lucrative business decision as anything, and that she’s making bank.
Sweeney seemingly hasn’t publicly addressed all the smack talk about her commercial, but it’s not outside the realm of reality to think that her Instagram posts shared on NFL Sunday are an indirect and winking response to any and all haters out there. Rather than stepping back in any way, the Euphoria vet shared different posts to her main page and her Stories that show off her curves hidden behind a variety of sports equipment, including hockey sticks.
The heart of the post is a video that has also been shared on YouTube and elsewhere, in which the camera zooms up on a topless Sweeney in Novig underwear, saying, "It's gameday." Images make up the rest of the gallery, and fans can see the Anyone But You star using a variety of balls and other sports equipment beyond footballs to cover her nether regions.
We've got a tennis ball and racket in applicable spots, Sweeney laying down across a basketball, as well as her posing with a baseball bat, an oversized hockey stick(?), and a fun shot where she's got three different balls balancing on various body parts.
Even if she didn't directly address anyone adding to the online backlash for the Novig ads, Sweeney's post seems to make enough of a statement all on its own about how she feels. "Oh, you didn't like me covering my chest with footballs? What about all of the other ones?" Well not golf balls, since those wouldn't hide anything.
For her IG Stories, Sweeney posted the "It's gameday," video followed by a gallery of covers from ESPN Magazine's The Body Issue in years past.
The Novig partnership comes as Sweeney is also promoting her lingerie line SYRN, though that reportedly hasn’t been doing as well as anyone expected following the immediate sell-out at launch. I'd be interesting to see if these ads have any effect on SYRN's sales.
