After years of the Left attacking women's sports in the name of "trans" inclusion — including the Biden administration's cynical attempt to rewrite Title IX of the Civil Rights Act — the Hollywood Reporter is suddenly worried about how seriously we take women's sports.
That worry is not borne from the disastrous WNBA, which relies on the much more successful NBA to keep it afloat, or the problematic statements of female athletes like Megan Rapinoe, a soccer player who can't compete against teenage boys but still managed to get a cut of the men's World Cup winnings over the summer. Instead, they really are concerned about actress, model, and incredibly savvy businesswoman Sydney Sweeney damaging the reputation of women's sports.
Why? Sweeney recently cut a provocative ad for Novig, a prediction website that focuses solely on sports. The ad features Sweeney with strategically-placed sports gear, and it gained a lot of attention online over the last week.
Sydney Sweeney Faces Backlash for Sexualized Novig Ad: "Exactly Why Women in Sports Aren't Taken Seriously" https://t.co/4Tc43tlTIK
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) September 12, 2026
The Euphoria actress partnered up with Novig on Wednesday to support the new platform, which launched last month. She not only starred in the ad but also joined Novig as a strategic partner and equity holder.
Novig’s “platform combines the mechanics of modern financial exchanges with a sports-first experience, creating a more efficient and transparent way for fans to trade on sports outcomes,” per a release. It’s also dubbed “the only prediction market to maintain a 21+ age requirement,” which the brand argues “[sets] a higher standard for responsible participation as the category continues to grow.”
Some users are arguing Sweeney’s ad for the age-restricted platform could have used an R-rated rating as well. “I couldn’t believe when that ad came on the tv. I had my 2 children in the living room I had to yell at them to look away from the TV. I don’t understand WHY they would need to create such a [vulgar] ad,” a TikTok user commented on a post made by Marissa Womack, manager of game day promotions and programming for minor league baseball team the Harrisburg Senators.
Others took to Sweeney’s Instagram comments, including one user who called out Instagram’s inconsistencies with taking down potentially sexualized content. “Love how @instagram allows for stuff like this but the moment I post something in a bikini , the post is removed,” they wrote, while another added, “22.4 million views but not even 1 million likes … why? Because this is not what we want for our sports ads. ESPECIALLY when kids like and follow sports as well.”
It's weird. Biden could have topless trans people on the lawn of the White House, and The Hollywood Reporter doesn't utter a word. Drag queens can have story hours and so-called "pride" events can feature barely-dressed activists, but the second a beautiful woman is used in an advertisement, they are suddenly puritanical again. It's almost like they have double standards.
Sweeney is not an athlete. She's not promoting sports. She's promoting a sports-betting website, something children shouldn't have access to in the first place. So spare me the pearl-clutching over all of this.
But more to the point: suddenly the Left has a newfound respect for women's sports. Up until about three seconds ago, The Hollywood Reporter and all of these complainers were perfectly fine with destroying women's sports entirely. In March of last year, the Boston Globe published an op-ed that called for the end of women's sports to "abolish the gender divide in athletics altogether." Where was the respect for women's sports then? In fact, where was the respect for women? Because ending women's sports would, in a sense, end the gender divide: sports would be men-only.
As Megan Rapinoe and her soccer gals proved, women do not have the physicality to play against men, even when those men are teenage boys half their age. The physical differences between men and women — inherent and biological — mean something, even if the Left wants to deny that reality to appease the fragile egos of some mentally ill males.
I am not an athlete by any stretch of the imagination. Nor am I a feminist. Yet here I am, defending women's sports and women's rights against the actual invasion of the patriarchy (remember when the Left hated the patriarchy? Good times). For that, I'm called a "TERF" and threatened with bodily harm, up to and including death.
This sudden concern about the respect for women's sports is rooted in jealousy of Sweeney, who is as smart as she is attractive. Deals like the contract with Novig, her lingerie line, and her work with American Eagle mean she'll have financial security long after she ages out of Hollywood. But because she's not an outspoken leftist, and because she looks good in both clothing and her birthday suit, the media seek to destroy her, and they'll even go so far as to feign concern for women's sports to do it.
