Karen Duggan Critiques Sydney Sweeney's Betting Ad

Karen Duggan has seen enough sports advertising to know a tired trope when she sees one. The former Republic of Ireland international looked at Sydney Sweeney’s now-infamous betting advert and didn’t bother dressing it up.

“I think it's silly,” she said on RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland. “It uses an outdated formula of, you know, attractive women, sports imagery, and a bit of controversy to sell a product.”

The Novig campaign, featuring Sweeney wearing little to no clothing and draped in sports equipment, has detonated across women’s sport. It has drawn sharp criticism from athletes who spend their lives fighting for visibility, only to watch the conversation dragged back to the same old place: women’s bodies as props.

Four-time Olympic champion Ariarne Titmus, American gymnast Gracie Kramer and British sprinter Amy Hunt have all called it out. Hunt, fresh from winning four gold medals at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest, went straight to the point, telling the Hollywood star online: “This is what women in sport look like.”

For Duggan, that backlash is the real story.

‘Women were not part of that conversation’

Duggan doesn’t see herself anywhere in the Novig imagery, and she doubts many athletes do.

“Sydney Sweeney doesn't represent me as a normal woman or as a female athlete in any way,” she said. “I don't think it's an ad made by people trying to understand what it takes to be a female athlete and the discipline and the sacrifice and the competitiveness and the physicality that goes with that.”

Her biggest criticism is not just the concept, but who shaped it.

“My biggest criticism of it is that I don't think women were part of that conversation at all.”

In her eyes, the target is obvious.

“I think it's largely just for men who consume sports through their phones, through social media, rather than even men who go out and engage in sports by going to the games, watching athletes, and appreciating what athletes do, both male and female.”

The ad, she argues, is aimed at a narrow slice of the sports audience. The reaction, though, has come from everywhere else.

Anger, then something more powerful

Duggan has watched the response unfold on her own feeds. And that, she says, is where the script has turned.

“I think it's a silly ad. I think it's so outdated. But the response to me has been really, really interesting.”

Instead of Sweeney dominating her algorithm, it is athletes like Hunt.

“My algorithm isn't coming at me with loads of Sydney Sweeney propaganda. It's coming at me with the likes of Amy Hunt using her platform after a race to celebrate her competitors. So I think it's flipped the script a bit in a positive way.”

What could have been another dispiriting moment has instead exposed something that has been simmering beneath the surface for years.

“I feel like there's obviously been something bubbling under the surface where female athletes feel massively underrepresented in advertising, in social media, and under-celebrated,” Duggan said. “And I love how they've used this ad as a means to go out there and highlight how the female athlete thinks, how hard they work.”

The controversy, she believes, will fade. The message, she hopes, will not.

“I think all the controversy that goes with the ad will dwindle away, but hopefully that this kind of movement to highlight female athletics will continue on for some time.”

‘What your body can do, not what it looks like’

Hunt, speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, pushed that same idea from the vantage point of a 22-year-old at the peak of her powers.

“When we’re trying to provide role models for young people and young women in sport, we really want to show that it’s about what your body can do, not so much what it looks like,” she said.

Her concern runs deeper than one betting campaign. It hits participation.

“I think when we see the stats of 64% of young girls drop out of exercise and sport before they reach the age of 16, we don’t need to place any kind of barrier whatsoever in their way in terms of providing the opportunity and the empowerment for them to still exercise, whatever that looks like, professional or kind of just going to do a park run with your friends.”

No filters. No performance of perfection. Just movement.

“So it’s about empowering young girls and young women and young people to show that you really can just get out there and you don’t have to worry what you look like, you don’t have to worry about what you’re wearing.”

That line lands at the heart of why this advert has hit such a nerve. At a time when women’s sport is finally breaking through, the fear is that one-dimensional imagery drags the conversation backwards.

A united front – and a message to brands

Duggan is adamant: the power now lies with the athletes, not the agencies.

“You don't want an advertising campaign to define the conversation around women,” she said. “We want the women to use their platforms now, use their own voices, celebrate each other's strength, athleticism, humour, ultimately real women. That's what's more powerful.”

She believes brands are watching the backlash closely.

“I'm hoping that other companies are seeing the reaction, the kind of visceral reaction that women and athletes are having to this ad, and it kind of clicks with them, that this is what women want to see.”

If Novig wants to sell to a narrow, phone-based betting audience, Duggan accepts that’s their choice.

“If you're a company like Novig, and you're solely focused on a certain cohort of men – like I said, I think it's just a cohort of men who consume sports through their phones or through betting and in that way – that's their prerogative.”

But any brand with broader ambitions has been handed a very clear brief.

“I think generally what companies should take from this is that we want to see strong, powerful women. I would react to Amy Hunt in a Nike ad far more than I'd react to Sydney Sweeney in a betting ad.”

The advert tried to trade on old clichés. The athletes answered with medals, mileage and a message. The real question now is which version of women in sport the next generation of campaigns will choose to put on screen.