Sydney Sweeney criticized by women athletes for nude sports prediction market ad

Actress Sydney Sweeney is facing criticism from a growing number of female athletes online over a new advertisement for a sports prediction market platform in which she appears wearing little or no clothing.

The advertisement, promoting prediction market platform NoVig, opens with a nude Sweeney asking the camera “think you know sports? Prove it,” while holding two footballs in front of her chest.

In another series of shots, Sweeney sits atop a basketball hoop, crouches in front of a hockey goal keeper’s net and lies on a soccer bench, all with limited or no clothing on.

Several female professional athletes, across a wide array of sports, are expressing outrage at the less than one-minute ad, arguing it objectifies women in sports and is in poor taste.

“idk what Sydney Sweeney was doing but this is what a women in sports looks like,” the American gymnast Gracie Kramer wrote in one post on Instagram , which she captioned “because it really is that deep.”

Skye Nicolson, an Australian professional boxer wrote Sweeney was “giving the ad campaign exactly what they wanted, but honestly these companies need to do better.”

Australian surfer Felicity Palmateer told CNN she found the ad to be “very damaging” for female athletes.

“Just absolute utter disbelief, incredibly disappointing, like, how far you can put women’s sports backwards in the space of a 42-second commercial,” Palmateer said.

Sweeney has not commented publicly on the backlash the ad is receiving, but she reportedly approached NoVig about participating in the ad and the company’s CEO told Front Office Sports she was “great at captivating audiences and being the center of attention.”

The actress has been at the center of controversy in the past, most recently in connection with an advertisement for American Eagle jeans which some critics said smacked of promoting eugenics.

Sweeney told Variety at the time of her work promoting various brands, “I’ve always believed that I’m not here to tell people what to think.”