In this op-ed, Maria Hasler, senior talent and partnerships manager at Always Human delves into the continued use of sexualisation in sports marketing, arguing that brands have a responsibility to put female athletes’ performance, personality and impact at the heart of the conversation.
Record audiences. Record revenue. Record crowds. So why is a woman’s body still the fastest way to gain attention?
Women’s sport has seen unprecedented growth in recent years and the growth is continuing across all metrics. Deloitte predicts that global revenues in women’s elite sports will reach at least US$3 billion in 2026, a 25 per cent increase on the US$2.4 billion value generated in 2025.
And yet, last week, a sports prediction market company called Novig launched its first major brand campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney. The actress appears almost entirely nude, using sporting equipment to cover her body. The campaign line “Just for Sports”, positions Novig as “the app for people who are serious about the game and nothing else”.
In an increasingly oversaturated media landscape, more than ever, brands are choosing one of two roads. Platforming diverse voices, championing meaningful causes, and truly standing for something bigger. Or, through one of advertising’s oldest tricks – sexualisation.
For female athletes, this feels like a major setback. For generations, they have worked to shift the conversation from what their bodies look like, to what their bodies can do. And this matters, because more than half of girls leave sport by the age of 15, citing body image and confidence among the barriers that keep them from participating.
Here at Always Human, we’re proud to represent Australia’s leading female athletes. Some of the most decorated names to ever grace football fields, pools, athletics arenas and the Olympic stage. We’ve secured 7-figure brand partnership deals for these athletes with some of the world’s biggest brands.
They’re the best in the business in “Just Sport”.
Here’s the deal. No one had to pose without clothes to close deals. Mary Fowler, Jess Fox, Ellyse Perry, Kaylee McKeown, Nina Kennedy, Tallia Younis – their excellence in “Just Sports” is what secured major deals for them.
So let’s return to Sydney Sweeney. With a track record of rage baiting audiences, it’s important to remember that she is complicit in these creative choices. Sweeney holds equity in the business and helped develop the campaign with Novig. Her choices are hers and they are not the subject of this piece. Piling onto Sweeney is not productive, we need to consider the broader choices that are being made in boardrooms globally to paint the picture – what is “Just Sports?”
The reality is, this is not about the person in the campaign, it is about the brand choosing the concept. An agency shaping the creative direction and sport serving as the setting for the campaign. Brands, agencies and the sports industry have the responsibility to decide what stories we tell and how we tell them.
When we have access to incredible female athletes, why are we still reaching for the same shortcuts?
In response to the Novig campaign, athletes from all over the world including Ariarne Titmus, Lani Pallister, Bree Rizzo Gracie Kramer, Tilly Kearns, have responded to Novig’s “Just Sports” by showing the reality of women in sport: competing, training, recovering, winning and celebrating.
Amid backlash, Sydney Sweeney responded by sharing images of some of the most celebrated female athletes on the cover of ESPN’s body issue, including Serena Williams, Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird. It’s true, these female athletes have posed nude, but the context matters. These covers celebrate athletes who have performed at the highest level and pushed their bodies to extraordinary limits. The athlete’s bodies are the stories, representing strength and the physical demands of elite sport. They are not used as a vehicle to sell a sports product. The Novig campaign does the opposite, using Sweeney’s body as the attention mechanism.
You know what else is “Just Sports”?
- In just three years, the value of women’s elite sport has grown by almost 250 per cent.
- 65 per cent of Australians are fans of women’s sport. A 2025 Australian sports media consumer survey found that 65 per cent of Australians surveyed consider themselves fans of women’s sport.
- 355,528 fans attended the 2026 Women’s Asian Cup in Australia.
- 11.5 million Australians watched the Matildas 23 World Cup semi-finals.
- More than 450K+ womens and girls now regularly play Basketball in Australia.
- And every week, our office receives handwritten letters from young girls to Mary Fowler, Jess Fox, Ellyse Perry and co. They tell them they look up to them and that watching these women succeed makes them believe they can do the same.
If women’s sports is more commercially viable than ever, why is sexualisation still the shortcut for attention?
Because shock advertising works, in the way that matters most to the people who greenlight it. It garners reach. It sparks conversation; it’s screenshotted, argued about in group chats and comment sections. It’s the strategy.
Reach built this way doesn’t just borrow attention, it profits from division. Pitting “real sports fans” against women’s sport, men against women, one side of a culture war against the other, and selling the resulting noise as a marketing win. It’s shock-jock reach, not credible brand equity.
Female athletes have spent decades asking the world to look at what their bodies can DO. For brands that are looking to connect through sport, this is a reminder to move beyond the male gaze and put performance, personality and impact at the heart of sports marketing.
