Why We Should Care About Sexualisation in Women's Sport—and How It’s Bigger Than Sydney Sweeney

Last month, Marie Claire UK released our sixth annual Women in Sport issue, celebrating the many strides we've made on and off the field of play. I myself penned an article, documenting the myriad ways today’s female athletes influence society, not just through their performances, but in their contributions to broadcasting, activism, innovation, management and policymaking.

Coming away from that piece, you’d conclude that women are active, valued and respected members of sporting communities. And in many ways we are. This year the largest media rights deal in women’s sporting history was signed by the WNBA. In football, the women’s game is expected to have over 800 million fans by 2030, making it one of the world’s top five sports. And at the Paris 2024 Olympics, nearly 40% of commentators on Olympic broadcasting services were female—an uptick of more than 200% since Rio 2016.

This all only makes it more dystopian that, this month, I’m sitting down to unravel an online storm around the sexualisation of women’s bodies within sports marketing. In the blink of an eye, or in this case, the release of a 58-second Instagram advert by a sports betting platform, women’s entire right to exist safely within sport has been called into an algorithmically-driven question.

If you have social media and follow women’s sport, you’ll know exactly what I’m referring to. But we want to be clear here—this isn't an attack on the individual actor who fronts the campaign. There are enough reels scrutinising her on your For You Page for that.

Instead, I'm exploring the systemic and cultural issues which prompted an advert like this to be created, and what the reaction tells us about the current safety of women in sport.

Breaking Down the Sydney Sweeney Novig Ad—and What It Means for the Future of Advertising

Why is the ‘Just Sports’ ad problematic?

First of all, let’s be clear. The Just Sports advert doesn’t try to present Sydney Sweeney as a female athlete. That’s part of what makes it so uncomfortable. In the video, her body is sexualised and used to sell sports betting to men. Her role, adjacent to but not actively participating in sport, speaks to an archaic, but not unfamiliar, position for women.

“Historically, women were rendered accessories to the action,” explains sport sociologist Dr Bethan Taylor-Swaine. “We were ring girls, grid girls and cheerleaders, there only to provide the entertainment between the competitions.”

Even when we did break free from the sidelines (note: women didn’t compete in the full Olympic programme until London 2012), our position as entertainers for the male gaze has lingered in the systems, customs and regulations around sport. It’s why we saw the Norwegian handball team fined for wearing shorts instead of bikini bottoms at the 2021 European Championships and why in 2024, female athletes from team USA had to contest their Olympic kit for being too revealing.

It’s also why I, when I was a 13-year-old junior athlete, felt more preoccupied by the way I looked in my skimpy crop top and running briefs than in my on-track performances. It’s why, as a kid, content creator Mary McCarthy worried more about her post-race photos than about the races she’d won, and why 73% of girls say they don’t like others watching them exercise. This sense of being constantly observed from a young age is also part of the reason up to 45% of female athletes struggle with disordered eating. “Women are still making choices about the way their bodies should look and what they should do with them based on a patriarchal ideal that’s been set for centuries,” explains sports dietitian Renee McGregor.

This is why the Just Sports campaign has had such an impact. “The reaction is fundamentally about context, power and history,” explains Professor Philippa Velija, Professor of Sociology and Interim Dean of the School of Education at the University of Roehampton. “Female athletes are not necessarily objecting to sexuality itself; rather, they are responding to a cultural environment in which their athletic legitimacy is often overshadowed by a focus on appearance.”

“Women in all sports, including players and spectators, have had to fight for the right to be taken seriously,” echoes Professor Stacey Pope, Director of Research in Sport and Exercise Sciences at Durham University. “Adverts such as this touch a powerful nerve, because they show just how fragile the nature of women's progress in sport has been.”

For more evidence of this fragility, you don’t have to look far. Just weeks before Novig’s advert, an audio clip went viral online, in which a manosphere podcaster argues that women who participate in sport go against their essential role of femininity. And in July, the European Broadcasting Union produced a 23-page document containing new filming regulations for camera angles in track and field after it found that female athletes were being disproportionately targeted by low-angle and lingering body shots.

“We’re living in a time where politics is becoming more right-wing and beauty standards are shifting back towards an outdated thin ideal,” says Dr Taylor-Swaine, who points to a recent article published by The Telegraph with the headline, ‘Slim and beautiful women are back in fashion. Thank God for that.’ “These are tools used to reinforce patriarchal norms by preoccupying women with their cosmetic presentation.”

It’s a murky, and at times downright ugly, backdrop, one which contextualises the emotive response to Novig’s advert. That’s all before you even consider that this is a brand which sells gambling to men—an activity which research shows interacts with violence against women and girls, thanks to its connections to substance abuse, shame, stress and stigma.

But even with all this context, you still wonder why, when revenue from women’s sport is growing 4.5 times faster than men’s and athletes are reported to hold more influence over consumers than celebrities, would a brand choose to present such a backward depiction of women in sport?

What was the motivation behind the Just Sports advert?

While we’ll never know for certain what guided the creative direction of Novig’s campaign, the likelihood, according to Sinead Brennan, Head of Social at creative agency Hijinks, is rage bait.

Built to inflame and infuriate, rage bait content has grown at pace since the early 2020s, when algorithms began to consistently reward divisive content. “Rage bait becomes its own content generator,” explains Brennan. “You don’t need people to love, like or even know your brand in order to give them a strong reason to participate—all you need is to create a reaction strong enough that it makes them want to say something.”

For a relatively unknown brand like Novig, you can see why that tactic appeals. In the space of a single day, “They’ve gone from a brand most people wouldn’t have heard of to one that we recognise and talk about,” says Brennan. And, as she points out, they’ve done it while drawing little attention to the service they’re actually selling. “In most categories, this would be a bad thing,” says Brennan, “but given the negative connotations of gambling, the ability to build familiarity and cultural relevance around the brand before people register that it’s a betting product, is powerful.”

It’s an uncomfortable truth, one which gets even more uncomfortable when you consider Sweeney’s role in the saga. “I don't doubt that she [Sweeney] is a product of the system and that she, consciously or otherwise, has been exploited,” says Dr Taylor Swaine. “But, as an equity partner in the brand, she is also a beneficiary of the system that has, in this case, been engineered to ultimately benefit her.”

How should we respond to the Just Sports ad?

Of course, all this raises the question of whether the backlash to the advert has given Novig exactly what they wanted.

But on the other hand, the reaction from female athletes, creators and fans has felt overwhelmingly heartwarming; we shouldn't have to call ads like this out, but we aren't willing to ignore inequality in this sphere any longer. We've worked too hard for too long not to call it out. Marie Claire UK's Senior Health Editor Ally Head said as much to me this week. "From the negativity comes one undeniable positive; my entire feed is flooded with strong, active women sharing what working out looks like for them, and swapping personal stories and anecdotes. Conversations have been sparked worldwide about what being a woman in sport truly means, cementing how passionate people feel about levelling the playing field."

She goes on: "I doubt we'd have seen this response five or so years ago, which unequivocally proves how far we've come. Seeing people of all genders come together to collectively say no and stand up for women's rights is a beautiful thing."

To continue positive change, we need to encourage conversations around women’s role in sport long after this trend fades. “There has been a certain amount of jumping on the bandwagon around women’s safety and gender in sport in response to the advert,” explains Dr Taylor-Swaine. “While it’s well-intentioned, and we do want people to talk about these issues, we also need them to continue using their platforms to support work that’s been going on in this landscape for a long time, even once the opportunity for trending content dies down.”

Nicola Kemp, communications co-chair for the WACL, echoes this. “This is a great opportunity to showcase the importance of women and girls feeling like they belong in sport,” she says.

If you’re looking for ways to stay consistently involved in the conversation around women’s role and safety in sport, Dr Taylor-Swaine (whose own Instagram and Substack are a treasure trove of knowledge) has some recommendations. “On an individual basis, challenge misogynistic comments when you see or hear them, provided of course you feel safe and able to do so.”

On an educational level, she recommends following Our Streets Now, an organisation which works against public sexual harassment, and This Ends Now, a charity which challenges gender based oppression. Then there’s The Gist, a sports media brand which provides genuinely equal coverage of men’s and women’s sports. And of course, there’s the wealth of women’s health and fitness content right here at Marie Claire UK. We’ve got deep dives into the silence around endometriosis in sport, the barriers to exercise safety for women and why the rates of domestic abuse rise when England loses a football game.

As for a parting message, we’ll leave you with this from Dr Taylor-Swaine. “Speak out, challenge your own perceptions and those of people around you, read lots and crucially, watch women’s sport—not just the big games, but the ones played by your local team.”