Karen Duggan Critiques Sydney Sweeney's Controversial Ad for Novig
Karen Duggan has seen enough sports marketing to recognise an old playbook when it’s dragged off the shelf and dressed up as something new.
The former Republic of Ireland international looked at Sydney Sweeney’s controversial advert for US betting company Novig – the Hollywood star scantily clad and draped in sports equipment – and saw something tired, not trailblazing.
“I think it's silly,” she said on RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland. “It uses an outdated formula of, you know, attractive women, sports imagery, and a bit of controversy to sell a product.”
The backlash has been fierce. And crucially, it has come from the very people the advert so clumsily skirts around: elite female athletes.
Four-time Olympic swimming champion Ariarne Titmus, American gymnast Gracie Kramer and British sprinter Amy Hunt have all publicly condemned the campaign. Hunt went further, warning the ad could become a “barrier” to young girls who might already be unsure about their place in sport.
Duggan, though, believes something unexpected has happened. The outrage has lit a fuse.
Old stereotypes, new resistance
For Duggan, the issue isn’t just the imagery. It’s who gets a say.
“My biggest criticism of it is that I don't think women were part of that conversation at all,” she said. “Sydney Sweeney doesn't represent me as a normal woman or as a female athlete in any way.”
She was blunt about the intent behind the campaign.
“I don't think it's an ad made by people trying to understand what it takes to be a female athlete and the discipline and the sacrifice and the competitiveness and the physicality that goes with that.”
In her eyes, this is not a debate about artistic nuance or edgy branding. It’s a lazy rehash aimed at a narrow, male audience.
“I think it's largely just for men who consume sports through their phones, through social media, rather than even men who go out and engage in sports by going to the games, watching athletes, and appreciating what athletes do, both male and female.”
Yet Duggan keeps circling back to the same point: the reaction has already outgrown the advert itself.
“I think it's a silly ad. I think it's so outdated. But the response to me has been really, really interesting.”
‘This is what women in sport look like’
That response has been led on the track as much as online.
At the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest at the weekend, Amy Hunt collected four gold medals, then used her moment to send a pointed message to Sweeney: “This is what women in sport look like.”
On ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Hunt broadened the argument. Role models, she said, should be defined by performance, not presentation.
“When we’re trying to provide role models for young people and young women in sport, we really want to show that it’s about what your body can do, not so much what it looks like,” she said.
The numbers back up her concern. Hunt highlighted that 64% of young girls drop out of exercise and sport before the age of 16. In that context, the stakes feel a lot higher than a single ad campaign.
“We don’t need to place any kind of barrier whatsoever in their way in terms of providing the opportunity and the empowerment for them to still exercise,” she said, whether that leads to a professional career or “just going to do a park run with your friends”.
“So it’s about empowering young girls and young women and young people to show that you really can just get out there and you don’t have to worry what you look like, you don’t have to worry about what you’re wearing.”
A different kind of algorithm
Duggan has noticed a shift in what she sees on her own feeds.
“My algorithm isn't coming at me with loads of Sydney Sweeney propaganda,” she said. “It's coming at me with the likes of Amy Hunt using her platform after a race to celebrate her competitors.”
That, she argues, is where the real power lies: female athletes seizing control of the narrative, instead of allowing a betting company’s creative team to dictate it.
“I feel like there's obviously been something bubbling under the surface where female athletes feel massively underrepresented in advertising, in social media, and under-celebrated,” Duggan said. “And I love how they've used this ad as a means to go out there and highlight how the female athlete thinks, how hard they work.”
In her view, the controversy around the Novig campaign will fade. The hope is that the momentum it accidentally sparked does not.
“I think it's flipped the script a bit in a positive way,” she said. “I think all the controversy that goes with the ad will dwindle away, but hopefully that this kind of movement to highlight female athletics will continue on for some time.”
What brands should hear
Duggan is clear on one thing: the conversation should not be defined by a single marketing stunt.
“You don't want an advertising campaign to define the conversation around women,” she said. “We want the women to use their platforms now, use their own voices, celebrate each other's strength, athleticism, humour, ultimately real women. That's what's more powerful.”
She believes companies are now on notice.
“I'm hoping that other companies are seeing the reaction, the kind of visceral reaction that women and athletes are having to this ad, and it kind of clicks with them, that this is what women want to see.”
If Novig want to chase a narrow slice of the betting market, Duggan accepts that’s their choice.
“If you're a company like Novig, and you're solely focused on a certain cohort of men – like I said, I think it's just a cohort of men who consume sports through their phones or through betting and in that way – that's their prerogative.”
But she is equally clear about where the wider industry should be looking.
“I think generally what companies should take from this is that we want to see strong, powerful women,” she said. “I would react to Amy Hunt in a Nike ad far more than I'd react to Sydney Sweeney in a betting ad.”
The message from the athletes is not subtle. They are telling brands exactly what they want to see – and showing, medal by medal, what modern women in sport really look like.
