Prediction market CEO says Sydney Sweeney was 'driving' visuals in controversial ads
The CEO behind Novig, the prediction market thrust into the limelight for its recent controversial sports betting advertisement featuring actress Syndey Sweeney without clothing, said it was Sweeney who was "driving" many of the ad's ideas.
Novig CEO Jacob Fortinsky, speaking Tuesday as part of a panel sponsored by Front Office Sports, said Sweeney was "driving a lot of the visuals and the messaging" behind the ads.
"It was a very exciting process to work with her both on the commercial side as well as on the creative side," Fortinsky said. "It really was Sydney who was driving a lot of the visuals and the messaging."
"We're hugely supportive of of women's sports. I think it's a huge component our platform," Fortinsky added. "I think we never intended to portray female sports. Sydney's an actress, the biggest movie star in the world"
Fortinsky said the ad was focused on the company's role as a sports-focused prediction market. He added that he expected some negative feedback based on pre-existing opinions some may have of Sweeney, but said the company was "very happy with how positive the feedback has been overall."
The ad campaign in question depicts Sweeney posing in several sports environments, from on top of a basketball hoop to inside of a hockey goal, wearing little to no clothing in each shot.
Sweeney says in the ad that Novig is "just sports, so they wanted to show just sports."
The advertisement saw backlash from female athletes including gymnast Gracie Kramer, who shared a video on TikTok of herself in competition with the text, "idk what Sydney Sweeney was doing, but this is what a woman in sports looks like."
International rugby player Sofie Fella shared an Instagram video in which she criticized the ad for a number of reasons, among them saying it was "disrespectful" to those involved with women's sports who worked to "untangle" from societal expectations around women's looks.
"Instead of paying female athletes properly or instead of putting it into the women's sports economy, we're spending money making ads like this?" she said.
In an interview with Front Office Sports earlier this month, Fortinsky revealed that Sweeney was now an equity holder in the company and approached them "initially interested in some sort of equity partnership, and the conversation really went from there."
ABC News has reached out to Sweeney for additional comment on the advertisement and backlash.
Sweeney caused a stir last year with her American Eagle advertisement focused on jeans. In one ad, Sweeney said, "Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue."
In another ad, posted on the company's social media, Sweeney is seen cleaning a photo of herself with the tagline "Sydney Sweeney Has Great Genes," with "genes" crossed out to instead read "jeans."
Some critics of the ad campaign claimed it promotes eugenics, a "scientifically inaccurate theory that humans can be improved through selective breeding of populations," according to the National Human Genome Research Institute.
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