🔒 🔒 Brand exposure: The familiar dilemma behind Novig’s 42 million-view Sydney Sweeney campaign

A sports prediction market’s attempt to establish its brand at the start of the NFL season has delivered 42 million Instagram views – and a global backlash from female athletes.

A roughly 60-second advertisement features actor Sydney Sweeney all but naked, posing with strategically placed sporting equipment. It is intended to promote Novig’s position as a sport-only prediction market.

Sweeney, a strategic partner and equity holder in Novig, says in the advertisement: “No betting on wars, or deaths and no politics. Just you, your takes and sports.”

Novig’s campaign attracted more than 42 million views on Instagram, while Sweeney’s own post attracted more than 1 million likes. She reportedly lost more than 200,000 followers after posting the advertisement.

The content of the ad raised concerns from those who felt it sexualised women in sport, including four-time Olympic gold medallist Ariarne Titmus, who described it as “an absolute joke”.

“I can’t describe how infuriated I feel when I watch this,” Titmus said on Instagram. “Not only is it a kick in the face to every woman who has dedicated her life to perfecting her craft, but every woman who enjoys sports for what it really is.”

Hockeyroos goalkeeper Joc Bartram said the campaign felt “so out of touch” when women’s sport was gaining recognition for athletic skill rather than appearance.

“There are so many different ways to get people’s attention rather than sexualising women’s sport once again,” Bartram said.

Federal politicians also joined the criticism. Warringah MP and former Winter Olympian Zali Steggall accused the gambling industry of using sex to attract young men and said the campaign reduced female athletes to a “sexualised punchline”.

Athletes and sporting organisations responded with counter-posts showing women competing in sport.

Among those to respond was the Australian Institute of Sport, which published footage of female athletes with the advertisement’s backing track and the caption: “THIS is sport.”

Sweeney defended the campaign as playful and posted images of nude professional athletes from ESPN’s Body Issue, including Serena Williams, Ronda Rousey, Sue Bird and Rob Gronkowski.

“The campaign was about embracing a fun idea,” Sweeney said in Novig’s campaign announcement. “The concept is simple: cut through the noise and put the focus entirely on sports.”

According to Novig co-founder and chief executive Jacob Fortinsky, Sweeney delivered that message “in a way that’s impossible to ignore”.

The company plans to run the campaign throughout the US football season through online video and out-of-home advertising, as well as digital and social channels.

Novig is looking to gain market share from prediction market rivals Kalshi and Polymarket by focusing purely on sport.

While Novig wants customers to see sporting knowledge, pricing and trading as central to its product, it has used Sweeney’s celebrity and image to generate recognition far beyond the prediction-market sector.

The same creative choice has allowed athletes and politicians to portray the business as another gambling company using sport as a vehicle for provocation.

This trade-off is already familiar to the Australian wagering industry. Saturation and provocation can establish a brand quickly, but they can also raise questions about the industry’s social licence and customer-acquisition practices.

Novig did not intend the campaign to target Australian customers and, as an unlicensed offshore operator, cannot legally offer its product here. Its reception nevertheless shows how an overseas wagering business can acquire recognition in Australia without advertising directly to Australians.

The campaign generated global attention only weeks after Novig launched its federally regulated prediction market in the United States.

Founded as a betting exchange in 2022, the company briefly operated as a licensed online sportsbook in Colorado before launching nationally as a sweepstakes sportsbook in 2024 and securing designation as a Designated Contract Market from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission in June 2026.

Unlike a conventional bookmaker, Novig applies financial-exchange mechanics to sport: customers trade positions on sporting outcomes at market-driven prices. The company pitches the product as a sport-focused alternative to fixed bookmaker odds.

Prediction markets allow customers to trade contracts whose prices move as participants buy and sell positions. Their rapid expansion is challenging established wagering businesses and raising jurisdictional questions outside the US.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has warned Australians using offshore prediction markets that they do not receive the consumer protections attached to Australian-regulated markets.

No prediction market is licensed under Australia’s national financial-services laws. There have, however, been suggestions that betting-exchange licences could provide a pathway for similar operations in Australia.