Why the Sydney Sweeney ad hit a nerve in sports

Driving the news: Highlight reels of women diving, pitching, tackling, shredding, lifting, skating, sprinting, leaping and covering sports have flooded social media this week — all with the same core message.

• British sprinter Amy Hunt delivered that refrain on-air this week, smiling and out of breath after the World Athletics Ultimate Championship: "Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like: 21.4. Muscles. Hard work, blood, sweat, tears," referring to American Melissa Jefferson-Wooden's winning time.

Women's sports are in an era of rapid momentum: The NCAA reported record high women's participation earlier this year, while Bank of America predicted U.S. women's sports revenue will grow more than 250% by 2030.

• There's still a long way to go on screen time, says Purdue University professor Cheryl Cooky, who studies sports and gender. But she says traditional media increasingly covers women's sports more seriously.

Still, Cooky says, "it's in some ways not surprising that we get [the] Sydney Sweeney ad at this moment," describing it as "part of a backlash to the kinds of gains that women's sports, and by proxy, women more generally, are making in our society."

• Some online argued the ad wasn't meant to portray a female athlete and was instead targeting sports bettors, who are more likely to be men.
• But Cooky says it still struck a nerve because "we thought we were past the point of having to make a case that women in sport contexts are not simply sexual objects for male consumption."

Between the lines: Even if traditional media has made progress in covering women's athletics, corporate marketing tends to follow the cultural mood, explains Carly Drake, an expert on gender marketing at North Central College.

• When feminism is prominent, brands sell empowerment. When the pendulum swings the other way, advertising can reinforce that backlash against women.
• "It really legitimizes the viewpoint that women and other vulnerable groups don't belong in sports," she says.

• Other sports- and fitness-related ads have recently faced criticism for their portrayal of women, including apparel brand Good Good for an ad where its co-founder shoved a female golfer to the ground.

Marketing in 2026 is a conversation, not a one-way channel, Drake explains, and social media offers a new generation of women in sports a way to build fan bases, shape their brands, and, in cases like these, resist.

• "They're not being given this power. They're taking it," Cooky says. "They're creating their own narrative on social media, as opposed to 30 or 40 years ago, having to hope that … traditional media outlets and gatekeepers would call attention to these issues."

Zoom out: That's also spilled over into a boom of podcasts hosted by or about female athletes or women in the sports world, like hall-of-famer Sue Bird's "Bird's Eye View" and "We Can Do Hard Things" with soccer legend Abby Wambach,

• Meanwhile, Apple TV hit "Ted Lasso" has returned to fictional team AFC Richmond. But no, not the guys from last season — now, it's the Lady Greyhounds on the pitch.

The bottom line: The male gaze isn't new. Women athletes' power — and access to platforms — to answer to it is.

Go deeper: Girls flag football is the fastest-growing high school sport