Sydney Sweeney has taken an equity stake in sports prediction market Novig as part of a provocative advertising campaign that has generated tens of millions of views across social media.
The minute-long film, titled “Just Sports”, features the actress promoting the platform while wearing no clothes and using a football and other sports equipment to cover herself. The advert has also prompted debate about the sexualisation of women in sports.
Novig chief executive Jacob Fortinsky said Sweeney approached the company because she was attracted to its exclusive focus on sports-event contracts. Rather than accepting a conventional endorsement fee, she wanted to become a shareholder in the business.
The size of Sweeney’s stake has not been disclosed. Novig declined to comment on the terms of the arrangement, including the extent of her ownership.
The deal comes as prediction market companies turn to high-profile celebrities in an effort to increase engagement and attract users. Polymarket released an advert featuring athletes including LeBron James, Derek Jeter and Eli Manning, alongside celebrities such as Spike Lee, Emily Ratajkowski and Alexandra Daddario, one day before the Novig campaign appeared.
Polymarket has not revealed the cost of its campaign. One report said the company, valued at more than 20 billion dollars and with nearly two million followers on X, is paying James 15 million dollars a year under their partnership. Jeter and Manning are reported to have smaller deals, while other participants were paid for one-off appearances.
Despite the reported scale of that investment, the Novig advert attracted greater engagement on Instagram. Polymarket’s post received fewer than 55,000 likes, while Sweeney’s Novig post drew more than 1.2 million.
Novig is valued at roughly 500 million dollars, meaning Sweeney could benefit if the earlier-stage company expands and competes successfully with its larger rivals.
Sydney Sweeney’s role in the Novig campaign
Sweeney’s involvement went beyond appearing in front of the camera. Under the agreement, she acted as a creative partner and helped shape the commercial and visual direction of the campaign.
A person familiar with the arrangement said she oversaw the choice of music, guided camera angles and shot coverage, and revised the script. The source described her as a hands-on “mastermind” across the creative process.
Shruti Saini, a brand strategist and adjunct professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, said the partnership offered Novig a way to compete for attention with better-funded businesses.
“If you’re Novig, you probably can’t outspend Polymarket. So you have to out-attention them,” she said.
“She’s not even a simple endorsement—she’s a competitive weapon. Within hours, one person put this relatively unknown company into the same cultural conversation as Polymarket,” Saini added.
Sweeney has previously taken a prominent role in campaigns designed to generate online attention. In October 2024, she appeared in a bubble bath in an advert for men’s personal-care brand Dr. Squatch, which quickly went viral.
She later said she had proposed selling a limited-edition soap made with her actual bathwater. The 5,000 bars, priced at eight dollars each, sold out within seconds, while the campaign generated nearly 90,000 Instagram likes and more than 45,000 reshares.
Saini cautioned that the impact of viral marketing can be short-lived. She pointed to Sweeney’s 2025 campaign for American Eagle, whose “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” slogan faced criticism from people who interpreted “jeans” as a reference to “genes” and a supposed endorsement of eugenics and conventional beauty standards.
The controversy initially brought strong social reach, new customers and increased investor enthusiasm for the retailer. However, subsequent financial disclosures showed no sustained sales growth in its core brand, while the company’s share price had returned to roughly its pre-campaign level about a year later.
“Advertising, marketing, [and] partnerships with celebrities can absolutely create momentum, but [they] can’t really compensate indefinitely for product, merchandising, and unclear brand identity,” Saini said.
She added that Novig risked becoming a “supporting character” in its own advert if attention remained focused overwhelmingly on Sweeney. The long-term value of the partnership will depend on whether the company works with her again and how it uses the exposure generated by the campaign.
