When this editor wrote on Monday about The New York Times' The Athletic post about Sydney Sweeney's ad for a sports gambling site "sexualizing women in sports," he had no idea that it was going to be more than a passing one-day story, but the media have magnified the supposed backlash against Sweeney. As we reported earlier, one person with an account based in India complained that for every act of "micro feminism" she did, Sweeney set feminism 100 years back.
I guess you need to do better feminisms then.
— Brad Slager: CNN+ Lifetime Subscriber (@MartiniShark) September 15, 2026
Amazing that Sydney posing with a goalie stick plunges you back to 1926, when you had to swim in pantaloons. https://t.co/xT5MUn7MqY pic.twitter.com/maIctuN8nr
Sweeney hit back by posting photos from ESPN's "Body Issue," which features naked athletes discreetly covered up by sports equipment, just like Sweeney. There's a photo of a nude Megan Rapinoe and her girlfriend Sue Bird making the rounds, but this editor is making the editorial decision to spare you from seeing it.
Now that The Athletic has stirred the pot, it's turned to a woman football writer to pen a column about how Sweeney's ad "ignores decades of progress in representing female athletes" and succumbs to "the male gaze." "It is time-warp stuff that hurts me so much," writes Megan Feringa.
From @TheAthletic: Sydney Sweeney's advert for the sports prediction app Novig ignores decades of progress in representing female athletes, our columnist writes. https://t.co/Dd0PLFianA pic.twitter.com/aBlTLA7wJz
— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 15, 2026
Feringa writes about an ad for Always sanitary products from 2014 that is "burned into her retinas." "An indiscriminate cast of men and women, boys and girls, is asked to act out athletic tasks. Run, jump, throw, kick. These participants are then asked to execute those same tasks — only this time, 'like a girl.'"
Many women athletes did not sacrifice their femininity or sexuality in exchange for sporting success — see tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams and Naomi Osaka, and gymnast Simone Biles.
…
That is why this advert hurts so much. Because Sweeney and all those implicit in creating it have intentionally ignored the decades of hard work by elite and amateur athletes who have managed not only to make a dent in that system, but even to deconstruct parts of it altogether.
Sweeney has responded to the condemnation with images of great sporting women stripping down in the name of strength and power. Indeed, these things have happened before. And with the help of those like Sweeney and Novig, they will happen again.
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Nope, not going to post that nude photo of Megan Rapinoe.
She’s not advertising women’s sports. Which, by the way, y’all can’t even define because you think a dude with a penis should be able to play in them.
— Brittany Hughes (@RealBrittHughes) September 15, 2026
Before I decide if @megan_feringa is qualified to write on this topic, I will first need for her to define what a woman is.
— Undefeated Champion of Tweeter (@1dad2lads) September 15, 2026
Ever notice that people on the Left will trample all over their own standards to attack the character of someone they politically disagree with or are insanely jealous of?
— Redneck Rogue Elf, 🐿 Whisperer (@TheRogue_Elf) September 15, 2026
It's almost like they are tribalism and lack standards that they impose on others.
I remember when this was applauded pic.twitter.com/wNdkjCW7Xu
— Michael norris (@norrismike1) September 15, 2026
Crazy how you can be a writer for The Athletic and not even be able to comprehend that an ad campaign is about gambling and has nothing to do with women's sports lmao
— The America Man (@TheAmericaMan1) September 15, 2026
She's not an athlete and the ad wasn't about sports.
— Mark Elevate (@mark_elevate) September 15, 2026
It was about gambling.
Hope this helps your harpies understand.
Sweeny's ad has absolutely nothing to do with women in sports. It has to do with men. It's for men. It's about men. That's it.
— Orchidfan (@catpie6348) September 15, 2026
Going to posit an theory if Sophie Cunningham, posted the same ad, the outrage would be roughly the same. Even though she is an athlete, she has the wrong politics.
— Cian Didymos (@Adaystars) September 15, 2026
It’s a gambling website, not a female sports appreciation website.
— Brandy (@Brandyrwf1) September 15, 2026
NYT is just a culture war reflex at this point. Really no different.
— Joey Prather (@pratjoey) September 15, 2026
Who knew an ad for a gambling website could bring back the trauma of another ad from 12 years ago for Always?
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