In one of her new ads for the peer-to-peer sports betting platform Novig, actress Sydney Sweeney — wearing nothing but underwear and a football placed suggestively across her bare chest — turns her head toward the camera and looks down the barrel of the lens. Her hollow stare precedes an even more soulless bit of ad copy, falling out from between her pursed lips with a heavy thunk: “It’s gamedaaayyyyyyyy.” 

Sweeney delivers this solitary line with such a (typically) wooden energy that I’m not even convinced she believes it’s gameday, sort of like when a musician puts out a Christmas album in November, and one has to quiet the knowledge that it was most certainly recorded in July. Her voice almost seems to lilt up at the end, as if she’s asking a question. “It’s gameday?” For just a flash of a moment, Sweeney’s contrived tone belies her body’s projected confidence. The knowledge of her intentions, and which unsavory games she’s playing, is visibly splayed across her face and audible in her voice. Then she smiles just a little wider, covering up the crack in the facade. 

Released last week ahead of the first game in the NFL’s 2026 season, the ad campaign sparked an immediate firestorm of outrage and press coverage. No doubt both reactions were Novig’s intended goal, given Sweeney’s recent history with controversial campaigns. If you missed her American Eagle ads that aroused both jeans sales and accusations that Sweeney was promoting eugenics and its language, please give me the address of the rock you were living under at the time. I could use an extended stay. 

(ANGELA WEISS / AFP via Getty Images) Sydney Sweeney appears in an advertising campaign for sports betting app Novig on a billboard in Times Square in New York City.

The Novig spots, however, make the American Eagle campaign look like ads for Quaker country. In the full 60-second clip, Sweeney, naked but covered in sports regalia of all kinds, repeatedly asserts that Novig is “just sports,” lewdly holding a football against herself to convey its yonic shape. A moment later, she renounces gambling platforms that allow betting on anything other than sports. “No betting on wars, or deaths, and no politics,” she states pointedly, cocking her head toward the camera. It’s a winking declaration for the famously apolitical actor, once again suggesting that politics — civic, social, national or otherwise — has no place in her work.

Never mind the fact that the explosion of peer-to-peer gambling platforms is a major political issue, of course. But I’d wager that’s not any of Sweeney’s concern. To her, it’s not about the implications of the advertisements; it’s about making a boatload of cash from them while keeping her name on everyone’s lips. Her goal is not to push the limits of how women can display their bodies and commodify their sexuality, so much as it is to see how much she can get away with while still being seen as a legitimate performer in the film and television spaces.

The problem with such a bawdy, bold experiment is that it’s a plan that hasn’t been mapped to its conclusion. Sweeney’s short-term goals ignore long-term prospects, and the scale of her influence seems to be even less of a concern. And while it’s not inherently bad to prioritize money and financial safety over art, playing the middle will eventually leave Sweeney stuck there. Coyness is hindering Sweeney’s potential, no matter how she decides to use it. As any athlete will tell you, the sport eventually takes its toll. Gameday has to come to a close eventually.

Perhaps that’s why the ads also incited immediate ire from professional athletes. Ariarne Titmus, a four-time Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer for Australia, decried the ad as infuriating in a now-expired Instagram story. “Not only a kick in the face to every woman who has dedicated her life to perfecting her craft,” Titmus wrote, “but every woman who enjoys sports for what it really is — teamwork, friendship, dedication, excellence, unity.” American gymnast Gracie Kramer posted a compilation reel of her work, saying, “I don’t know what Sydney Sweeney was doing, but this is what a woman in sports looks like.”

Seemingly in response, Sweeney posted a slew of stories of men and women athletes without clothing on the cover of ESPN’s annual body issue. These, of course, are professionally trained athletes who have put in years of hard work and fervent dedication to their sport — a commitment to their craft that it seems Sweeney has abandoned, judging by her recent roles. It would be fairly simple to say Sweeney is not comparing herself to athletes, but rather trying to capture the overwhelmingly male market of sports bettors. But that argument flew out the window when Sweeney likened herself to the athletes who choose to highlight their bodies’ contribution to their athletic success on the cover of a magazine.

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That comparison presents an interesting point, too: At this juncture, it’s perfectly fair to say that Sweeney has also used her body to her own career advantage. She’s as known for her looks as she is for her performances and characters. Even two Emmy nominations for her work in “Euphoria” aren’t enough to overshadow the cartoon eye-popping that happens every time she decides to show skin for a role, an ad campaign, or her lingerie brand, Syrn. Consider, too, the name of Sweeney’s newly formed production company: Honey Trap — a term for using sex and romance for information or monetary gain. 

Naturally, it serves Sweeney to indulge American chauvinism in a play for power and success, especially since she’s listed as an equity holder in Novig. This certainly wouldn’t be the first time a woman has been smart enough to use the patriarchy in her favor, and it won’t be the last.

But there’s a sticky insidiousness to how Sweeney is going about all of this. That she’s dating Scooter Braun — the oft-maligned celebrity management tycoon and the one-time holder of Taylor Swift’s master recordings — seems like a factor in all of these recent career developments. But it would be myopic to pretend that Sweeney has no agency in her decisions. She knows exactly what she’s doing, and has more than enough money, power and notoriety to back her choices. It’s just that she’s making these choices without a hint of tact or taste. As egotism escalates, encouraged by the entirely self-interested MAGA political movement, blind narcissism and repugnant indifference (not to mention sexual objectification fueled by incel culture) are the trendy currency that stand to make Sweeney filthy rich. 

How, then, does one forge a career as a serious actress when all of their career side quests are so laughably unserious? That’s the part I’m not sure even Sweeney has figured out, much less planned in detail. She’s not playing chess or checkers, or even chutes and ladders; she’s throwing the game pieces on the board and moving them around at will, like a child who thinks they’ve got a handle on the many rules of Monopoly, but really just likes holding the colorful play money. 

Sweeney hasn’t turned in a genuinely good or interesting performance in a movie since 2023’s HBO original, “Reality.” (TV is a different story. Her work in the recent season of “Euphoria” was intriguing, if only because her role is so keenly aligned with her public persona.) Yet she is no doubt a bankable star, with multiple major films in production and box-office hits like “The Housemaid” and “Anyone But You” under the same belt that is barely keeping her American Eagle jeans up. That doesn’t mean Sweeney is the best part of either movie, but her marketability and star power are nothing to scoff at.

But building a brand on society’s misogyny is a double-edged sword. If most men are pigs who tie a woman’s value to her looks, then it’s inevitable that their piggishness will eventually dictate that cash flow as the years drag on. Youth fades, beauty changes, and another blonde bombshell is always waiting around the corner to hip-check the last one from her perch. Talent and artistry are what sustain a career in Hollywood. Just ask Pamela Anderson, whose looks defined her work, only for her to leverage that stigma into a truly compelling oeuvre later in life — proof that skill and presence remain even as appearances change. Given that Sweeney can’t sell the six-second Novig ad without the veneer shattering and revealing her true intentions, her performance skills require polishing that avaricious capitalism can’t provide.

All this is to say nothing about the predatory nature of peer-to-peer betting and its frightening prevalence. Sweeney isn’t directly responsible for users’ personal choices or any resulting gambling addictions, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t complicit in the billion-dollar industry’s attempts to capture impressionable young bettors and turn them into gamblers. That’s the kind of sludge that’s harder for Sweeney’s reputation to wash off, the type that’s destined to keep her stuck in this middle ground, impeding her abilities and perception over time. It’s much harder to climb higher when you’re glued in one place than it is to lose your footing and fall, dangling from the point you chose to fasten yourself to. Gravity sends everything south eventually. And sooner or later, Sweeney is bound to figure out that no one gets to have their cake and show it off, too.